Postcards from the Team
by Totenkinder Madchen
Summary: Collection of short 'fics, inspired by the live-action movie but comicverse-based. Chapter seven includes prompts Running with Scissors, Talking Too Much, and Touching My Equipment. COMPLETE, now with appendix.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This was an accidental piece. I was rewatching "Rise of Cobra" and idly jotting down random phrases that came to mind as I did, and when I looked at the list afterwards, I realized that I had one of the strangest collections of drabble-prompts I'd ever seen.

As of this writing, I have a collection of thirty-one prompts. Unfortunately, most of these "drabbles" far exceeded a hundred words, so I've decided to split them up into chapters to avoid overwhelming anybody. Expect a chapter every few days; I'm free to update this, since it's all fresh material and not locked up in my laptop like "Order Up" is. They're random little ficlets, comicverse-based—some funny, some sad, some weird.

Owing to the nature of the film and my thoughts as I watched it, a lot of them are Snake-Eyes-based, though obviously Duke gets a fair share. A handful of them are "(adjective) ninja" prompts, so to mix it up a bit, I'm including only one adjective-ninja ficlet in each chapter.

**Pairings:** S/SE, Destro/Baroness, F/LJ, some implied CG/BH

**Rating:** T

**Disclaimer:** G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

**Postcards from the Team**

_by Totenkinder Madchen_

_

* * *

  
_

_Spider-Duke_

Holidays were a bit of an odd issue at the Pit. The major ones involved family obligations—usually Christmas and Thanksgiving, but sometimes there would be someone requesting time off for Easter too—but the minor ones, where a team member's presence might not be demanded by his friends and relations, passed by without much fuss. Oh, some wiseass would grease the climbing wall on April 1st, and the number of chocolate boxes received by the female Joes on Valentine's Day was absolutely ludicrous, but for the most part life kept ticking away.

Sometimes, though, a Joe would find themselves off-base for one of those minor holidays. When Duke Hauser requested leave for the final week in October, to attend his sister's wedding, Hawk signed the papers without really noticing the significance of the 31st.

Duke's nieces knew, though. While his sister was getting married, his brother had already started a family, and a trio of identical blonde triplets latched onto "Uncle Connie's" legs the second he disembarked at the St. Louis airport. They were babbling excitedly about the wedding—they were flower girls, apparently—but seemed even more excited for the upcoming holiday. Candy corn was apparently a large factor.

When their apologetic father detached them from Duke, he explained that they were being allowed out to trick-or-treat this year. Duke, still a little off-balance from an attack he really didn't know how to repel, commiserated with his brother on the task of herding three sugar-hyped five-year-olds through the Halloween night. The two men grinned and backslapped, the nieces circled excitedly, and Duke's sister-in-law smiled indulgently.

Then, on the afternoon of the 31st, something came up at work. Duke's brother phoned the house, sadly telling his wife that he would be needed for most of the night—something about a contract—and that he couldn't take the girls trick-or-treating. And their mother, well, their mother was eight-and-a-half months pregnant and couldn't take a lot of long walks around the neighborhood.

The First Shirt of G.I. Joe was never one to shirk an unpleasant duty. Especially not when Jessie, Susie, and Janey were looking up at him with big pleading eyes. Later, when the Joes found the photographs of Duke wearing an ill-fitting Spiderman costume and leading three tiny Disney princesses . . . well, he could point out that it still wasn't the goofiest team he'd commanded. That shut most of them up.

And if Scarlett, Jaye, and Cover Girl were grinning and wearing tiaras the next time he passed them in the motor pool, that was their business.

* * *

_Taking my toys_

The squad had reached a relatively peaceful zone, and its six remaining members breathed a shaky sigh of relief as they bivouacked under a dripping mango tree. Tommy and Snake-Eyes were put on watch, while Lonzo, Wade, and the rest sacked out on whatever relatively dry piece of ground they could find.

It was supposed to be safe to light a fire in this area, but Lonzo wouldn't have it, and even Tommy had to cede that the man knew what he was doing when it came to tracking and wilderness survival. Snake-Eyes, quietly resigned as he was to most things, dug a K-ration out of his pack. That, however, _was _something Tommy would argue: with a grimace, he waved away the proffered package and swung up into the tree. A few seconds later, he dropped noiselessly to the ground with three mangoes in his hand.

"You going to eat all of those?" Snake-Eyes said, eyeing the fruit. Despite the weather, the mangoes had been relatively protected from the worst of it by the leaves. Tommy noted his friend's expression and silently tossed him one, which the blond man easily caught.

"Watch it," Tommy cautioned as his friend bit into the ripe fruit. "These things have pits like peach stones in them. You don't want to lose a tooth; Lonzo would probably just make you stick it back in and keep marching."

Snake-Eyes arched an eyebrow at that, but nodded and drew his ka-bar. He manipulated the knife expertly, digging the tip into the mango and twisting his wrist at exactly the right angle to slide under the stone. One flick of his wrist, and the stone was neatly scooped from the mango and flung across to click against the acacia tree a few yards away. Then, still silent, he speared one of the remaining pieces of fruit on the tip of the knife and ate it.

"So where'd you learn to use your knife?" Tommy said finally. He knew where _he _had learned, but while Snake-Eyes had a long list of high-level training courses in his jacket, none of them really equaled what ninja training went through. And while knife use was high on the list, elegance was definitely not one of the things the Army cared about.

"Iowa," Snake-Eyes said. Tommy, a California boy who spent half his life in Japan, gave him a blank look. "Farm country," the blond man supplied, wiping the blade of the knife on the damp grass. "If you're not tying hay bales, you're cutting them loose again for the animals. And Dad used to take me and Terri on hunting trips in the fall." A pause, and for a moment Tommy thought his enigmatic friend had said his piece, but then he shrugged and continued. "Terri can shoot, but even back then, she didn't like the butchering. And you don't waste good venison." Another pause, but this time, Tommy waited patiently. "Dad always told me that if you're going to kill an animal for food, then you should know how to do it quickly and cleanly. It's the right thing to do."

"Ever used a throwing star?"

Snake-Eyes eyed him. "What?"

Tommy jumped up, far too energetic for the long march they'd just had. His friend's deft use of the knife had put the germ of an idea in his head. "If you want quick and clean, _shuriken _are the way to go," he explained, pawing through his rucksack. "Here. This is an eight-point star—good for a beginner, since you don't have to worry so hard about aiming the points and timing the spin."

At Snake-Eyes' increasingly disbelieving look, Tommy grinned. "Oh, come on. How many training courses did you go through? A new skill's always useful. See that big leaf on the left branch? If you can hit that before it's Lonzo's turn to take watch, I'll give you the last mango."

"You're strange," Snake-Eyes said simply, but there was a bit of a grin on his face too. And Tommy didn't think twice before handing his friend the throwing star.

* * *

_Sleepy ninja_

Right from the beginning, nobody questioned the ninja or his limits. Later on, when there were more on the team, the Joes would be almost accustomed to the strangeness of having them around—sudden appearances, knife gouges in odd places, black-clad figures somehow blending into white wallpaper. But nobody would ever really _question _them.

Back in the beginning, when it was just the one, he was even more of a figure of mystery to them. Nobody asked about his capabilities—or his limits. And regarding the latter, nobody knew he even _had _them. And when a Huey had gone down in flames and the black mask appeared, he was more remote than ever.

Some things he couldn't change, though. Even the mighty Snake-Eyes couldn't go more than seven or eight days without sleep, especially after a two-week-long jungle mission. So when Hawk left Wild Bill in the cockpit of the transport plane and went back to talk to his battered team, he wasn't entirely surprised to find a black-clad figure curled up in a pile of loose netting and blissfully asleep.

What made Hawk raise an eyebrow was that the man's head was pillowed on the lap of the redheaded Intel specialist. Scarlett noticed him looking, too, and shot the general a completely deadpan look even while she ran a soothing hand over the sleeping ninja's face. And Snake-Eyes, who went from zero to deadly in less than half a second if anyone tried to wake him, had his own hands knotted tightly around her free one.

That was when Hawk first figured out that something wasn't quite regulation with two of his team members. But at the time, he just nodded back to Scarlett and stepped across the hold to speak to Breaker and Grunt. Even ninjas needed their rest, after all.

* * *

_Too human for this_

Clan McCullen had done a lot of business with England over the years. Once, they had even been awarded a coat of arms, the gift of some king grateful for the steel that had put down one rebellion or another. Heraldry being the convoluted in-joke that it was, the crest had featured a farmhand rampant, a sickle in hand—_culling _the harvest, choosing which stalks were cut down. Appropriate for a family of weapons dealers, and doubtless absolutely hilarious in the seventeenth century. James McCullen XXIV, alias Destro, had quietly rolled his eyes at that when he first saw it in one of his family's ancient books.

But when he watched Cobra Commander work, screaming orders at his subordinates and sprawling in his chair to spread caviar on _crackers _and shoot at G.I. Joe-shaped targets, Destro wondered what had happened to the concept of culling. The man in front of him killed randomly and indiscriminately. Destro couldn't even begin to pretend that his own work was ethical, but there were limits that even his dark business didn't cross.

Cobra Commander actually had quite a thin neck. A sickle would be just right.

Then the Baroness would lay a hand on his arm, her lips somehow warm on his skin even through the metal mask, and Destro would let his vendetta go for the time being. _One day, _he would promise himself.

Somehow, that day never seemed to come.

* * *

_Symbolism_

"All I'm saying," Lady Jaye observed, grinning a little as she sipped her fourth piña colada, "is that once you start looking for it, you can't _stop _looking."

Cover Girl snorted into her beer. "That's what you get for studying literature, Jaye. Do yourself a favor and read a romance or something. Something with a shirtless guy on the cover. Maybe then you'll stop, uh, _looking."_

"She has a point, though," Scarlett admitted reluctantly. The martial artist had a cup of tea cradled between her hands, but even she couldn't resist the pressure of the girls'-night-out tradition and had added a small jot of whiskey to the cup. "The symbolism can get pretty strange. I remember discussing _Dracula _in college, and . . . well . . ."

"Well what?" Cover Girl said curiously. Jaye had burst out laughing.

"They moan, Court. The female vampires moan when they get staked." Cover Girl's eyes widened a little, and even Scarlett was snickering a little. "They moan, and writhe, and scratch, and I think they spasm, too. All while Stoker gives loving details of the hard stake plunging through their wicked, wicked flesh." Jaye shook her head. "The man had some issues."

"That's what you see when you look at the world?" the tank driver said, taking another sip of her beer. "I take it back about the romances. I think you just plain scare me."

"You want to know what's the best part?" Yes, Jaye was definitely a little tipsy. "Snake-Eyes."

"What about Snake-Eyes?"

Jaye straightened up a little, assuming the posture of a classroom instructor. The illusion was somewhat spoiled by the little paper umbrella stuck behind one ear. "'The implications before us,'" she began in a lilting Irish accent, "'of the characteristic actions of this individual cannot be overlooked, especially within the male-dominated militaristic world where we find him. Swords are traditionally a masculine weapon, symbolizing dominance and the penetrative capability of the phallic-'"

The impromptu lesson was adjourned when Scarlett knocked Jaye's chair out from under her.

* * *

_Bring me the head of Conrad Hauser_

Conrad "Duke" Hauser, First Shirt of G.I. Joe, found himself in the interesting position of holding command over a bunch of frickin' lunatics. When he'd first introduced himself to the team, him and Roadblock driving off the Cobra troopers who tried to destroy General Flagg's funeral, he'd announced his intentions to mold them into a _real _fighting force.

That, in retrospect, might have been a mistake. Because First Shirt or not, the team was already a real fighting force, and it didn't take Duke long to realize that he was pretty much along for the ride.

He held up his end, and they respected his command. He consistently scored high on—or topped—the various evaluations that Doc and Beach Head put the Joes through, he'd seen more combat than an entire squadron of U.S. Marines, and he wouldn't trade his job for any other in the world. That didn't mean they didn't make an art form out of tormenting high command.

Sure, none of it was _intentional. _Mostly. (Shipwreck, Dusty, and Clutch were on semi-permanent KP detail for a reason, after all.) But Duke knew as well as anyone that in unusual situations, you got unusual personalities—like the desert trooper who moonlighted as a refrigerator repairman, the pacifist combat medic, or, uh . . . well, pretty much anybody. And they were unusual personalities hated downtime. Which meant that if someone pulled something stupid under his jurisdiction, Duke was suddenly facing repercussions from the side of his job that he really didn't like—the administrative side.

Sooner or later, he was going to badger the Pentagon to issue a new set of incident report forms. They would make his job so much easier. Form 2227FG: Report of Prank in Motor Pool. Form 4156LI: Report of Inappropriate Use of Military-Grade Explosives. Form 1747JF: Report of Percussive Shock Injury due to Sudden Ninja Appearance, with tick boxes to indicate which ninja had done the appearing and whether the surprised person had fallen down a staircase, slipped on a bucket, or just bumped into a door.

Yeah, and maybe Cobra would donate all their funds to Greenpeace. But hell, he could dream.

* * *

_Pretty when you're homicidal_

Her Wolverine was a smoldering wreck. _Again. _Cover Girl cursed and aimed a kick at the nearest tread, not caring that she was currently losing her temper in the middle of a gutted battlefield. The area was secure, the HISS tanks were even more demolished than her beloved Wolverine, and she was taking a moment to get royally pissed off.

Almost immediately, though, she regretted it. She was alive, after all; she'd managed to leap clear only a few crucial seconds before the timed bomb went off, and aside from a bruised shoulder, the ex-model wasn't even scratched. There were injured Joes out there, and she could probably fix her Wolverine more easily than Doc could fix them. At the thought Cover Girl clenched her fists, looked away from the tank, and turned to see what was happening on the battlefield.

A hulking figure in a torn sweater and 'tac vest came stalking up to her, hauling a semi-conscious HISS tanker by one dislocated arm. Cover Girl's breath caught when she spotted the bright patch of blood on the green fabric, but the balaclava obscuring his face twitched, and she knew he was grinning.

"Ease off, Krieger. Ain't mine."

Subtle, Beach. Why didn't he just hang a big sign "Macho Jackass" sign on his back and get it over with? Although maybe it was his way of showing off, sort of like the way Shipwreck kept flexing whenever Cover Girl glanced in his direction. She couldn't quite keep a grin from edging onto her face at that, and Beach Head inclined his head in her direction.

"See, there ya go. You okay?"

"Fine and dandy, Beach." She pretended to peer around him, as if seeing the HISS tanker for the first time. "Awwww, you brought me a present! I _always _wanted one."

"Add 'im to yer collection. The brass'll need someone who knows their tanks to look over 'is interrogation reports anyway, so ya might as well get t'know 'im now." Beach hauled the tanker to his knees and pulled the man's mask off. Cover Girl leaned down a little, checking the Cobra's pupils to see if he was concussed or brain-damaged. She'd been wanting to get some inside info on those new missile arrays the latest HISS models were using, and if he'd been knocked too badly on the head, they wouldn't be able to get any of those juicy specs out of him for ages—

The Cobra tanker's eyes focused, and he smiled dazedly. "You're pretty," he mumbled.

" . . . Beach, don't even try it. If you break him, you have to buy me a new one."


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** Second set of ficlets, as promised. This one only has four, since they all came out a bit longer than I'd intended. This is why I can't write drabbles.

"All mimes go to heaven" seems like an odd, random kind of thing—but in "Rise of Cobra," during the Paris chase scene, one of the fleeing bystanders is a stereotypical French mime with a beret and striped shirt. I couldn't resist seeing what I could do with him. (Since these are set in the comicverse '80s, though, they're still using francs instead of euros.)

"Photo op" mentions the Burning Man festival. It's every bit as weird as can be imagined. Suffice to say that there are a few Joes who wouldn't quite fit in there.

**Rating:** T

**Disclaimer:** G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

_All mimes go to heaven_

Henri Sanson, known simply as _l'homme silencieux _on the Rue Grande, had been a mime and a fan of mimes for as long as he could remember. Thirty years behind the invisible box, man and boy, and now he sported the white makeup and black costume with pride. Like all professional buskers in Paris, he ascribed to the street performers' code: 1) Your spot is yours alone. 2) Don't touch anybody unless it's part of the act. 3) Get yourself noticed and the money will follow. 4) Tourists are a gold mine.

It was in obedience to rules three and four that Henri staked out his mark for that afternoon. A pair of people were walking down the street towards him—tourists if he'd ever seen them. The woman was tall and pretty, with red hair in a ponytail, and her companion was a broad-shouldered American with a strangely plastic sort of face (another victim of _le Botox, _Henri figured) and a pair of mirrored sunglasses. They were walking purposefully but not too quickly, and to Henri's practiced eye it looked as if they had a definite destination but could afford to waste a couple of minutes. Conclusion: good pickings.

He leapt in front of them, widening his eyes and giving an exaggerated grin and a silent wave. The redhead jumped a little, and the man instinctively raised an arm in defense before he realized that they weren't being attacked. Only well-moneyed tourists were that jumpy, Henri knew, and he decided to play up that nervousness for all he was worth. He stared at them and mimed startled fear, launching into a backflip and tumbling onto the pavement with his hands over his eyes. For a moment he writhed, clearly being attacked by invisible people, before creeping behind an invisible barrier and peering around it with wide eyes at the couple.

"That's a new one," the woman said. She had some sort of accent that made her English difficult for Henri to understand, but the bemusement was clear in her tone. "Think you could do that, Snake?"

For a moment, Henri thought he'd misheard. Maybe his English wasn't as good as he thought. But the blond man raised an eyebrow, glanced at his companion—and then, still completely blank-faced, leapt into a backflip that made Henri drop character and gawk. Landing perfectly, the blond man tucked his hands into his pockets and cocked his head at the woman, who had a hand pressed to her mouth and was trying to stifle a chuckle of laughter. For a moment, the man might have smiled, but Henri wasn't sure.

Mainly because he was too busy being annoyed. He didn't like being shown up on his own street—the statue man on the corner and the juggler who worked the Café Royale would never let him hear the end of it. He pouted exaggeratedly, pretended to slink off in tears, then faked a trip over the curb and turned it into an elaborate tumble that left him upside-down against the wall, eyes bugged out.

The woman glanced at her companion, who shook his head. Not a "I can't do that" headshake, but a "I couldn't be bothered" headshake.

"Beneath a ninja's dignity, huh?" The woman teased. The man nodded solemnly, and he might have cracked another smile.

Now Henri was getting angry. They weren't even paying attention to him, and the three-point tumble was one of his best tricks! Not many of the mimes in Paris were also accomplished acrobats. This sort of thing was a perfect example of why Americans annoyed him. Most tourists would have tossed him a few francs by now, or even just acknowledged that he'd done something extremely funny.

The redhead turned to him. "I'm sorry," she said to Henri, but she was still smiling. "Mimes aren't really our bag. We're just here to have a look around." To Henri's surprise, she winked. "It was nice to meet you, though. Silent men are my favorite kind."

The strange couple strolled off, arm-in-arm, and Henri scratched under his beret as he watched them go. He would never understand tourists, he decided. On the other hand . . . he shot his gaze down the street. Two men were following the pair, about twenty-five meters back--a huge black American with what looked like a guitar case, and an almost-as-big white one with a green sweater and a strange bulky vest. Maybe they would be more reasonable. He shot off towards them, waving broadly and leading his invisible dog.

And Scarlett and Snake-Eyes laughed, just a bit, when the roar of "Gawddamn fuckin' FRENCH!" erupted behind them.

* * *

_Good-luck kiss_

"Then it's agreed," Destro rumbled, leaning forward and planting his hands on the table. One gloved hand stabbed at the map of Sierra Gordo. "Crimson Guardsmen to the east, under Fred XIV. Zartan will take the Dreadnoks in through the southwest canal to provide a distraction. I'll take personal charge of the Baroness' FANG squadron. The capital will be ours by nightfall."

The Baroness, curled up on the couch with a cast on her shattered ankle and a sulky expression, eyed the map. "Take good care of my FANGs, Destro," she warned. "I've just gotten them all trained perfectly, and I don't want to start over again with some other group of idiots."

"I'll bring them back to you," Destro responded coolly. "You have my word on that." The brunette woman's eyes narrowed a little behind her glasses, but the smallest of smiles quirked her lips.

"Zartan," she said, "take the map and give the men their final orders, please. Destro mentioned that he has some tactical moves he would like to discuss with me."

The Australian glanced at the Baroness, then at Destro. Then back to the Baroness. She was taking off her glasses, carefully folding them and tucking them down the front of her black leather bodice. Destro looked as implacable and intimidating as ever, but his eyes were glittering behind the mask. Zartan shook his head, grabbed the map off the table, and headed for the door. "Make it quick," he growled. "Or I might decide to take command myself."

His Dreadnoks were assembled in the garage. Technicians bustled around them, checking the FANGs and Rattlers before the operation commenced, and as usual the rowdy gang looked totally out of place. They were slouched over their motorcycles and passing around several grape sodas--and if they thought Zartan didn't know about the vodka in the bottles, they were dead wrong.

"Where's Destro, mate?" Buzzer drawled. "Izzit gone south a'ready?"

"Taking a moment with the Baroness in the briefing room," Zartan said shortly. The Dreadnoks hooted and backslapped each other—all except Zanya, who wrinkled her nose at the thought and took the opportunity to steal Gnawgahyde's grape soda. Zartan wasn't surprised at that; though a regular hellraiser, Zanya was still at that age where "old people" having sex was downright disturbing to her. It was something she'd have to get over if she wanted to be an effective Dreadnok.

"That Baroness is a bloody _machine!" _Ripper hooted. "Hey, Zartan, ever think about changin' your look and getting some of that?"

Zanya gagged and accidentally inhaled her stolen soda, forcing Heartwrencher to pound her on the back. Zartan ignored it. "If you want to try it, be my guest," he said, unfolding the map. "She'd probably bite your head off after she finished. Zanya, if you choke to death, you won't get to shoot anybody. All right, the southwest canal . . . "

* * *

_Photo op_

The rules of Burning Man were clear: if you took photographs, you had to agree to sign over the rights to the group that ran the festival. Many people didn't bother with the hassle of signing all the paperwork, but there were always a few that wanted to preserve memories of their time at the anything-goes extreme-art festival in the desert, and those people photographed anything in sight. Like, for example, the brunette woman in the camouflage-print bikini, who was taking pictures of the Serpent Mother flamethrower robot while her oversized boyfriend alternated between glaring at anyone who eyed the woman's figure and gawking at the scene around him.

"Lighten up, _Wayne_," Cover Girl said, elbowing Beach Head playfully in the ribs. "We're here to have fun, aren't we?"

"Sure," Beach managed between gritted teeth. He knew very well that they weren't, but even he was subtle enough not to mention the words "undercover" or "provide obvious target" in the middle of a crowd. "But these people have some gawddamn weird ideas of fun. Some of them ain't wearin' clothes, Cov-" Another elbow to the ribs, this one less friendly. He scowled. "Courtney."

Cover Girl shrugged and slung her camera strap over one shoulder. "The base has communal showers, Wayne. You know we've both seen worse."

"Yeah, but even the screwballs on base don't do this kind of stuff." Beach Head jerked his thumb at a passing group of people who were chattering animatedly amongst themselves. They had feathers in their hair and colorful flowers painted on some rather personal places. "Shoulda picked Spi—uh, Charlie—for this gig. He knows how to talk to people about energy and totem animals and shit."

"Your cultural sensitivity and knowledge of the alternative arts just astounds me, Wayne," Cover Girl said lightly, threading one of her arms through Beach's. He stiffened a little, but remembered that they were in public and didn't do anything except glare a little. "Seriously, lighten up. You look like you're waiting for the firing squad. Don't you ever relax?"

"Ten thousand people, no metal detectors or security, and you can't even bribe people to hide ya 'cause the whole damn place is on the barter system. I ain't gonna relax here, princess."

Cover Girl laughed a little and moved closer, resting her head on his shoulder. Beach Head practically jumped. "What d'you think you're doing, Krieger?" he hissed to her under his breath.

"My job, idiot," she whispered back, keeping a contented smile on her face. "I'm just playing the nice girlfriend who's clearly dragging you here kicking and screaming. Gives you an excuse to be here, but doesn't keep you from standing out—just like Hawk _said_. So pull that stick out of your ass, all right? You won't get a deadly disease from standing next to me."

"I just ain't used to havin' one of my troops huggin' me, that's all. And yer not exactly dressed regulation, Krieger."

"Too bad. I bet if this was my uniform, I'd be able to get a lot more done." Beach's eyes narrowed at that, and Cover Girl grinned up at him. "They sure wouldn't drag their asses ordering my Wolverine parts if I walked around like this all the time. I could head right into Storage Vault's office, put my hands on his desk, lean over just right, and-"

"And you'd get booted for inappropriate conduct."

"Who? Me?"

"Damn right. And my life would be a hell of a lot easier."

"Oh, please. You couldn't live without me. Don't think I didn't see you glaring at those guys who were ogling me earlier."

"What's yer point? Yer one of my soldiers, Krieger. So don't start with the—"

"You don't want to even know what I could start with. Hey, do you think they make these bikinis in desert print? I bet Dusty would appreciate that."

"I _said _don't start, Krieger! I can have you doin' pushups in a second. And if you even think about gettin' up in Dusty's face dressed like that, I'll have both of you on the course until yer legs fall off."

"You're cute when you're a macho meathead, Wayne. But seriously, can you blame Dusty if something _did _happen? I mean, look at this ass. And I _know _you have been, so don't even lie."

"Gawddamn it, woman, stop it! Yer enjoyin' this way too much!"

"I can't help it. You're so much fun to torture."

"Just because you look good in that thing don't mean you can-"

"Aha! I knew it. The immortal, untouchable Wayne Sneeden likes my bikini. Aren't you going to shoot yourself for breaking frat regs now?"

"Why do you even bother usin' a damn tank? Just aim that mouth of yers at the snakes and they'd run like spooked rabbits."

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but missiles just amuse me. You're not going to win this one, ranger man."

Beach Head was two seconds from losing control—there she was, smirking up at him, wearing camo and not much else, Jesus Christ she was _infuriating—_when an explosion cut him off. Both of them instinctively ducked, Beach Head throwing an arm over Cover Girl to protect her from shrapnel. All around them, people screamed as the Serpent Mother robot broke free from its fenced-in area and lurched forward, spewing fire from its jaws and knocking down tents left and right.

As he peered through the dust and smoke, he spotted a blue-suited Cobra trooper mounted atop the robot and—yes, laughing maniacally. Beach sighed in relief.

"Thank Gawd for that," he muttered, pulling both of them to their feet. "C'mon, Krieger. Let's go catch that viper before the hippies eat 'im alive."

Cover Girl broke open the camera case, revealing a small remote control. "I've got the Wolverine stashed in the Mutant Vehicles tent. Want to bet I can have it here in under a minute?" Beach Head grinned.

"See, Krieger?" he said as he checked the magazine on his .45. "_That's _attractive. Don't need no damn bikinis."

"Normally I'd yell at you for having screwy priorities, but I have to agree with you on that one." Cover Girl thumbed the remote, and in the distance, they heard the grumble of the Wolverine's engines. "C'mon, Beach," she said, smiling. The desert wind made her long red-brown hair dance. "This is what we were born to do."

And it was. But he had to admit, watching her leap into the driver's seat of the huge tank, that she looked damn good doing it too.

* * *

_Old-fashioned ninja_

"Sensei is going to kill us," Kamakura whispered, trying not to tremble at the thought. Crouched beside him on the cabin's roof, Jinx looked almost as pale as he did, but her expression was determined and her mouth set into a hard line.

"But he also ordered us to obey the Phoenix Master while he was on leave with Sgt. Scarlett. You swore an oath to Clan Arashikage, Kamakura; you can't back out now."

"I'm not going to back out. I'm just hoping he makes it quick, that's all."

"Sensei wouldn't kill us." Jinx frowned a bit. "Well, not really. We may be on hard stealth training until the end of time, but we won't be dead." She shrugged. "We'll just wish we were."

Kamakura had had three father figures in his life, and two had been Crimson Guardsmen. He remembered being nine years old and helping his mother set up monitoring and defensive equipment in their Staten Island house: "It's for your father's job, honey. Now hand me the C4, please, and don't drop it." He should, in retrospect, be used to his mentors being mildly terrifying. But the sheer idea of spying on his sensei, even on the Phoenix Master's orders . . . eek. He only hoped that his death would be painless.

Wincing a little, expecting every second to feel a hand clamp onto his neck, he snuck towards the edge of the roof and peered over the edge. Jinx was beside him, an eight-pointed shuriken in her hand. By angling it just so, she could catch the light from the open window below them and get a reflection of whatever was going on in the cabin.

Sensei and Sgt. Scarlett were curled up together on the rough rug, apparently talking in low voices. The dull surface of the shuriken made it impossible read Scarlett's lips, but the movements of Sensei's hands could still be discerned. He was . . . telling a joke? Kamakura's eyes widened a little at that. Scarlett burst out laughing and flopped back, half-collapsing onto sensei and clutching his arm while she giggled. Sensei was laughing too, silently, a broad grin on the scarred face. It was about as relaxed as Kamakura had ever seen him, and it was downright weird.

Then, in one smooth move, the older ninja jumped to his feet and swept Scarlett up in his arms. The apprentices on the roof could hear her squeal of surprise, but their eyes were fixed on the reflection in the shuriken. Sensei was cradling Scarlett easily, holding her like a man carrying his bride over the threshold, and Scarlett's arms were snaking around his neck. Kamakura gulped. He did _not _want to be here, not watching—oh God, they were doing to be _so _dead.

Sensei freed one hand to sign something, too quick for Kamakura's eyes to follow, and for a moment Scarlett's smile vanished. Then she planted a kiss on his cheek, slipped out of his grasp, and sashayed towards the window. Jinx almost dropped the shuriken as Scarlett went straight to the window, opened the curtains all the way and flung up the sash. Kamakura stopped breathing.

But no, she hadn't seen them. Training with a ninja was not the same as training to _be _a ninja. The two apprentices kept as still as they could, but Kamakura couldn't help noticing that Jinx's panicky grip on his arm had eased a little. Were they safe?

"All right, you two," Scarlett called out softly. "You have ten seconds to get off the roof before Snake sends Timber up there after you."

Oh fuck. Busted.

Trembling, the apprentices scrambled for the edge, dropping down onto the ground and trying not to make eye contact with the bemused redhead. Jinx was almost, but not quite, hiding behind Kamakura—who only wished he'd thought of that first. Scarlett leaned on the windowsill, apparently totally unconcerned by the fact that there were two fully-masked Arashikage trainees standing on the sloping grass outside the cabin. Behind her, sensei was tugging his normal black mask on, shaking his head in annoyance. Kamakura could only hope that it would be quick.

[The Phoenix Master sent you two to spy on me,] he signed shortly as he joined Scarlett at the window. Jinx nodded, apparently opting for complete honesty.

"Yes, sensei."

[Did he tell you why?]

"He said only that it was vital for the safety of the clan and your health, sensei."

Sensei groaned silently and dropped his head into his hands while Scarlett—Scarlett was laughing again. Kamakura tried not to flinch.

[I am _not _a workaholic,] he signed finally, the signs swift and exasperated. [And I do _not_ need Tommy sending Ninja Force to make sure I'm actually relaxing. Last time it was Tiger Claw and T'jbang, and now you two.]

Scarlett covered her mouth, trying to stifle a sound between a giggle and a snicker. "He cares about you, Snake," she said mock-seriously, nudging sensei in the ribs.

[Cares, my foot. This is just his way of making sure I stay paranoid during my vacation.] Sensei sighed audibly, one of the few sounds he could make. Kamakura shot a glance at Jinx, but she looked as uncertain as he did. [He really _is _a brother. The brother who won't leave you alone for five seconds.]

"Shall we go report to the Phoenix Master that you are indeed relaxing, sensei?" Kamakura said hopefully. Jinx stamped on his foot, but it was too late—the words were out of his mouth, and sensei's gaze was fixed on him.

[Yes. And also tell him that since he cares so much about my well-being, he can do me a favor and take over training the new recruits for the next three months.] Kamakura dared to breathe a sigh of relief, and sensei shook his head. [And you two will be his devoted, _uncomplaining, _assistants during that time. I'll make sure he thinks up some more creative orders for you. Understood?]

"Yes, sensei," Kamakura and Jinx replied dispiritedly. The Phoenix Master could get downright sadistic with those orders, too. Not a _quick _death, then.

[Good. Now if you'll excuse me . . .] Sensei pulled Scarlett back from the window and closed it with a firm thud. A second later, the curtains were pulled closed, and the two apprentices were left standing on damp grass in the darkness.

With nothing else to do, they started the trudge back down the hill towards town. It was a six-mile trek to the nearest paved road, and even if they ran the whole way, they still wouldn't reach town 'til morning. Kamakura didn't mind the exertion—it was proof that, yes, he had spied on his sensei and survived. Jinx seemed thoughtful, though, and didn't even look at him until they were deep in the woods.

"They're cute," she said finally. Kamakura jumped and almost cracked his head on a tree branch.

"What?"

"Sensei and Sgt. Scarlett."

" . . . _what?_"

"The way he was carrying her. Sort of old-fashioned. Almost adorable."

"Are you feeling all right? Because I was too busy worrying about getting caught to think about whether sensei was acting 'cute.'"

"Stop making that face, Kamakura." Jinx leapt neatly over a fallen log. "I'm an Arashikage by blood, remember. I grew up among ninja, and I'm used to seeing them do things like that. Even your sensei is a human being, you know."

"I know he's human. It's just . . . weird to see sensei like that. Hugging her and all."

Jinx rolled her eyes in the shadows. "Tell me, Kamakura. Where do you think ninjas come from?"

"The clan?"

"Not quite. You see, when a mommy ninja and a daddy ninja love each other very much-"

"Thank you for that mental image, Jinx. Don't make me knock you out."

"Oh, as if you could."


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Third set of ficlets. This one is very, very ninja-centric, with one throwaway piece on a character who doesn't get nearly enough love—but with a name like the one the G.I. Joe writers gave him, it's sort of understandable.

The first ficlet in this chapter was inspired by my college work. I'm currently studying Buddhist philosophy, and we were reading the encounter dialogues of a particular Zen master—IE, the stories about the various conversations he had with his students. Enlightened people in Zen encounter dialogues sometimes do bizarre things, and when I read one where a master cracked a student upside the head with a staff . . . God help me, I thought of Storm Shadow. I started wondering about how the various things that go on in Pit training sessions would look as encounter dialogues and koans.

This bit is meant as an affectionate parody; it's not intended to be disparaging to Buddhists or the Zen tradition. Frankly, I just love mocking the kind of pompous academic writing you get in college-level classes, and it never ceases to amuse me how analysis texts will read huge amounts of significance into the tiniest details. Plus, the idea of a Zen tradition being based around the Arashikage was irresistible. Please understand that I'm not trying to offend anyone.

"No humans allowed" was a stab (so to speak) at the psychology of the early Snake-Eyes. He wasn't born as a commando, after all, but the fairly idyllic upbringing he seems to have had contrasts sharply with his Withdrawn Badass persona in Vietnam. Also, I liked the idea of Tommy giving him the nickname that we all know him by.

"Swiss Army ninja": because being useful isn't always a good thing. And because I love to mess with Kamakura.

**Rating:** T

**Disclaimer:** G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

_That word does not mean what you think it means_

**An excerpt from _The Shadow of the Storm: The Encounter Dialogues of the 20__th__-Century Arashikage Masters and their Context within the Modern Zen Tradition, _by J.F. Wright. Published June 2856.**

. . . however, the problem remains that these were not dialogues intended for public consumption. As with many of the ancient sutras, the so-called Pit Dialogues have been pieced together from stories passed down by members of the Arashikage Zen tradition, an extremely secretive sect. (Since the late twentieth-century Masters of the tradition were not recognized as buddhas within their own lifetimes, the sect is very sensitive to criticism.) A few key parts of the Pit Dialogues were collected from the remaining diaries of the eponymous Phoenix Master, and these comprise the group known as the Hand-to-Hand Sutras—the texts followed by the Unbroken Line division of the Arashikage Zen school. These are the only proof of the Phoenix Master's existence: his fellow teacher, known to followers of the school as the Silent Master, does not appear within the historical record.

However, the Hand-to-Hand Sutras are also rife with confusing descriptions, and their vagueness is one of the main causes of religious schism within Arashikage Zen. In recording the diaries that would become the Hand-to-Hand Sutras, the Phoenix Master mixed accounts of daily life with musings and deep deconstructionist philosophy. Unlike the encounter dialogues of Ma-tsu or other famous Zen masters, the Phoenix Master therefore engages in conversation—and combat—with not just humans, but with animals (the most common being the 'rat who lives in the tunnel,' possibly some form of local pest), inanimate objects (a chip of flint, the rock which rolls) and the land itself. Indeed, the land appears to be one of his most talkative opponents. Witness sutra #56 (translated from the 20th-century English by Dr. K.G. Ward):

_When it came time again for hand-to-hand, the Phoenix Master was approached by the sandy beach. "Tell me this, o master," said the beach in a most disrespectful tone. "Why is it that you persist in the tormenting of me upon the course of many obstacles? Is it not enough for you that it is my wish that all warriors might survive again to fight another day?" _(See note below.)_  
_

"_Even the mighty beach must learn that it is fallible," replied the Phoenix Master. "For the beach is made of sand, and can be swept away by the storm." _

"_When we meet again amongst the obstacles, you will be forced to lever yourself many times against the ground," the beach warned._

(Note: The original text for sutra #56 has been lost. The Broken Line faction of the Arashikage Zen has a different version of this exchange in which the beach speaks in a barely coherent dialogue tentatively identified as late-twentieth-century Southern American; however, the Unbroken Line faction uses the version as excerpted above. The latter claim that to give the beach this accent is to stereotype it in the manner of the Americans of the day, some of whom associated the accent with unintelligence: an enlightened being such as the Phoenix Master would not do this kind of thing.)

After the Phoenix Master, the most common figure in the Hand-to-Hand Sutras is the Silent Master. Academics have contended for some years that the Silent Master is a metaphorical character, created by the Phoenix Master to symbolize the purity of the enlightened experience; however, the death imagery associated with the Silent Master (he is spoken of as having an inhumanly-scarred face) and his consistent appearance even in the earliest texts, including his apparent disagreement with the Phoenix Master in several sutras, leads adherents of the sect to claim that he was in fact a real person. The Arashikage Zen temple in Fresno, California even has enshrined an ancient Uzi semi-automatic which they claim belonged to the Silent Master himself.

True to his name, the Silent Master does not speak. He appears to have a female aspect or better half, the figure known as the Red-Colored Woman, who is constantly seen to engage in dialogue with him despite his silence. The Red-Colored Woman is considered one of the founding bodhisattvas of the Unbroken Line tradition, and is in some circles revered even more than the Silent or Phoenix Masters. Her adherents claim that, with her apparent ability to control the Silent Master without threats or violence, she embodies the union of both love and warrior spirit within all women. With the Silent Master, she appears gentle; with the Phoenix Master, less so. Consider sutra #117:

_The Phoenix Master was then alone, meditating upon the world and all its many aspects, when the Red-Colored Woman sought him out. "Enlighten me, Phoenix Master," she said, disdaining all signs of respect or obeisance. "Why is it that, even though you were once at war with the Silent Master, you now embrace him as a brother? He has your marks upon his skin, where your knife has injured him many times."_

"_We were brothers before we were enemies. Now we were brothers again. It is not important. Can you not see that I am trying to meditate?" replied the Phoenix Master._

"_I can see that you are trying to meditate, Phoenix Master," said the Red-Colored Woman. "This does not mean that I will respect your wish for meditation. How is it that any can be certain you will not be an enemy of the Silent Master again?"_

_In this questioning, the Phoenix Master was most disturbed. "I have sworn an oath," he said. "I love him as a brother, as you love him as a wife. Is this so difficult to understand, Red-Colored Woman?"_

_The Red-Colored Woman was not satisfied in this, but she went away again. Seeing that she had departed, the Phoenix Master was most relieved._

Sutra #117—more commonly known as the Injury of the Other Half Sutra—is considered crucial by both the Broken and Unbroken Line sects of the Arashikage Zen tradition. The Broken Line sect considers it indicative of the nature of man towards enlightenment; the Phoenix Master had apparently undergone some spiritual crisis, losing his enlightened self ("we were brothers before we were enemies") before regaining it. It also highlights the role of the Red-Colored Woman—the figure of female strength, a true defender of enlightenment, warning the Phoenix Master about losing his faith again. The Unbroken Line sect, which reveres the Phoenix Master as a true enlightened being, points to this sutra as a confirmation of the essential Zen belief that all material things are empty of self. The Phoenix Master's former enmity to a brother figure is immaterial, because it occurred within the empty cycle of death and rebirth (_samsara_).

Discussion questions:

1) Reread the excerpted sutras above. What do you think is the real nature of the Phoenix Master? Is he fallible or infallible?

2) The Red-Colored Woman is described as loving the Silent Master "as a wife." Can this be taken as an argument for the Silent Master's existence? Can the Red-Colored Woman be considered a disciple especially devoted to enlightenment?

3) Read the sutras on page 27-34 and consider the sandy beach. Why do you think the Phoenix Master chose this particular landscape feature for his philosophical discussions? Why do you think the beach is always angry?

* * *

_There is a ninja on the roof_ (continuation from Old-fashioned ninja)

Snake-Eyes might not have had the Ear that Sees, but he could tell when his apprentices were still lurking about. He waited, not quite tense but listening hard, for a few moments after the window had been shut. Finally his shoulders relaxed, and he allowed himself to be pulled back down onto the rug with Scarlett.

"Don't run them too hard, huh?" Scarlett said quietly, laying her head on his shoulder. The ninja sighed a little and ran his fingers through her hair.

[They _were _just doing what I asked them to . . . following Tommy's orders.]

"But you're still annoyed," she added. Snake-Eyes nodded.

[It's ridiculous. What does Tommy think he's going to accomplish by sending my apprentices—or stray Ninja Force members—down here to harass me? It's not as if I take too much time off.]

Scarlett grinned a little wryly and planted a kiss on his cheek. Snake-Eyes wrapped an arm around her, sighing again as he looked down at her.

"That's true," she murmured. "You _are _a workaholic in some respects, Snake. But that's not what's bothering you, is it?"

[You know me too well.]

"It's in the Girlfriend Handbook. Subsection two, 'Managing Your New Ninja.'" A snort from Snake-Eyes, and Scarlett stifled a laugh at his almost mock-indignant expression.

[It's strange, Shana. But you know—I didn't _have _a brother, growing up. You've got, what, five?]

"Three."

[I could've sworn it was five. They make enough trouble for five.]

She smiled a little. "I think they're just annoyed that they can't beat you up. When Siobhan was old enough to start dating, they used to scare every boy that came to the house for her."

[Maybe they should have scared Siobhan,] Snake-Eyes signed shortly. It was no secret that he would never like Scarlett's older sister, and given the circumstances under which they'd all met, Scarlett wasn't going to force the issue. [But that's my point. My sister's idea of annoying me was having six or seven of her friends over and gossiping at ear-splitting volume. And we were twelve at the time. Tommy, on the other hand . . . ]

"Storm's a bastard," Scarlett said, but without any real malice. She nestled a little closer, and Snake-Eyes tightened his hold on her. "But Snake—you guys were in Vietnam by twenty. And God knows we've all seen our share of horror. Your face—" Her voice hitched a little, and Snake-Eyes knew she was remembering her role in the accident. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she took a calming breath. "And how many times has Storm been brainwashed? I think he's mischievous because he's just happy to be alive and in his right mind."

[And that gives him license to interrupt our private time?] Snake-Eyes signed, but with less irritation this time.

"Or I could be wrong. Maybe he's trying to keep one of the senior masters of the Arashikage from being seduced by a woman of no clan at all."

Snake-Eyes couldn't help it: he laughed. [Because, yes, that's exactly what Tommy's worried about,] he signed when he could manage to breathe again. [Clan outsiders corrupting the Arashikage!]

"You always need to look out for those mischievous, traitorous _gaijin," _Scarlett teased. "I could be distracting you from your duties—acting as a corrupting influence-"

[God forbid.]

* * *

_Fall-down kinda guy_

When your real name is Tormod S. Skoog, your life is going to be interesting. The man now known as Tripwire could only chalk up his continued existence to luck, skill, and far more good karma than anybody who was still human could possibly have.

In ordinary life, he was a disaster waiting to happen. Two years in a Zen monastery had come to an abrupt end after young Novice Tormod managed to trip over nothing at all and dump an armful of expensive china dishes down a thirty-foot flight of stairs. Granted, he'd managed to keep from falling himself—but only by grabbing hold of a valuable tapestry, tearing a large strip out of it in the process. The fact that the abbot had been coming up those same stairs didn't help either. With no place else to go, Tormod had gone into the Army. Subsequently being rechristened Tripwire had been a blessing; anything to escape the terror of "PRIVATE SKOOG! FRONT AND CENTER!"

"Skoog." Family records stated that it had originally been Scheügowski, the kind of mixture you got when Polish and German families intermarried during an age of inconsistent bookkeeping, but when Grandpa Brzezslaw hit the beach at Ellis Island his descendants' fate had been sealed. An incompetent official had decided to shorten it for ease of spelling. Someday, Tripwire hoped that Cobra would invent a time machine, just so he could have the privilege of hijacking it and taking out decades of "Ha ha! Skoog!" on that same official.

Tripwire was one of the few Joes who had no problem talking to Psyche-Out, and the psychologist had theorized that Tripwire's clumsiness might be the result of all that taunting. Tripwire didn't quite believe that—Psyche-Out used the word "trauma," which to Tripwire was what you got when you didn't drop the grenade fast enough—but what the hell, he liked the headshrinker anyway.

But that was just part of the essential weirdness of his life. Clumsy with dishes and stairs, he was a surgeon with high explosives. He couldn't find peace in a Zen temple, but he'd never been happier than when surrounded by career soldiers who routinely shot their way through mine-infested battlefields. He'd much rather have Tripwire's life than Tormod Skoog's.

Provided, at least, that Cobra didn't kill him. Or Beach Head didn't kill him. Or the ninjas. Or, on one memorable occasion, Cover Girl. (He couldn't help it—she looked _great _in those workout shorts.) It rather said something about his existence that the explosives were the _least _deadly thing he dealt with.

* * *

_No humans allowed_

Tommy was no stranger to silence and death, but even he had to admit that right from the beginning, the quiet soldier had unnerved him. They had been placed together in the LRRP unit purely on the strength of their scores, which had surprised Tommy when he'd first heard who he was shipping out with; he'd gotten used to being considered insurpassable, even when he was holding back to avoid attracting too much attention, and the notion of some Midwestern hayseed being his close second surprised him.

When the six fresh men were all introduced to each other, the tall blond one didn't say anything. Tommy had known the routine by then—act friendly but not too friendly, get to know the rest of the guys he'd be stuck with for a long while, don't let them mark him as anything more than just another new kid. They didn't need to know that he'd gotten his record-breaking hand-to-hand scores by holding himself back, or that "Tommy from Fresno" was a member of a ninja clan who'd been sent to war as a method of tempering his enthusiasm. The others were Johnny, Dan, Will, and Carl, and none of them would last very long.

The last man just stood there, hands tucked into his pockets, hat pulled low over his eyes. He didn't seem particularly lunatic, but he wasn't nearly as outgoing as the others. He made the cautious Tommy look like a socialite.

He seemed to pretty much answer to "Hey, you," although the commanders used his real name. His voice—when he used it—was as bland as his appearance, a Midwestern accent with all the corners rubbed off. Since it made him sound like the announcers on news programs back Stateside, the group had collectively christened him Radio.

"Radio" seemed to be the only other member of the squad who wasn't overreacting to the whole situation. Four of the six either joked their way through their jobs—humor as a defense mechanism, something Tommy was all too familiar with by now—or overcompensated, certain that every bush could be hiding a VC or an IED. (Unlike many of the local camp followers, who were usually hiding a VD.) But Radio seemed oddly self-contained: he was there, he had a job to do, he was doing it. Half the time it was as if he didn't hear anything any of the others said.

Privately, Tommy thought he looked ridiculous—as white, blond and stoic as a recruiting poster for the Wehrmacht. Not quite human, maybe. But he was a good soldier, and Tommy found himself wondering what was going on in the guy's head.

They got to talking. Radio was from one of those states in the middle of the country. After assaying a few names and getting blank looks from Tommy, he'd generalized it as "the corn belt," something a lot easier to remember. He had parents and a twin sister back home; they hadn't been happy with him joining up, but he'd signed the papers at eighteen and didn't need parental permission. He never said why he joined, and for a while, Tommy thought he was just another rookie looking for the college tuition Uncle Sam could provide. After a few days, though, he sussed out the truth. Radio, God help him, was an _idealist._

Granted, not the bleeding-heart type. But maybe all the corn and small-town America and God, Country, and Apple Pie had done something to his brain, because Radio seemed to think people were good. Tommy had killed his first man at the age of eleven, and as the Young Master, was privy to the kind of work the Arashikage Clan had sometimes done. He had no illusions. His squadmate, on the other hand, could pick a Vietcong off a branch ("used to shoot squirrels" was his only explanation for his bizarre skill with a rifle) neater than anything, but still seemed to think that the whole mess could be straightened out somehow. He didn't like torture. Shot to wound when he could. The man carried a picture of his _sister, _for crying out loud!

And after a firefight, or during those times when they emerged from the jungle to find a bloated body lying by a roadside, he'd get more quiet than ever. Pull that damn hat over his eyes, never say a word. Tommy knew what that meant. An idealistic small-town upbringing was fighting it out with the reality of the last days of the Vietnam War, and one side had to win.

In the years following, Tommy could clearly remember the moment when he realized the winner. Dan was dead, and Johnny was laid up in the treeline with not much of an arm left. The four remaining men were creeping through the tall grass towards the edge of the clearing, trying not to make a sound and keep clear of the VC patrol that was less than a hundred yards away. Ambush—not even a big, frightening ambush like the one that would almost do for Wade Collins in the coming year, but the kind of inevitable skirmish that LRRPs were always risking.

Carl, in the lead, gave the signal to freeze. The rest of the men did so, ducking and flattening themselves against the ground as best they could. Their breathing sounded ridiculously loud in Tommy's ears. Despite years of ninja training, his heart rate was through the roof. The enemy soldiers were practically on top of them. How could they _not _hear the racket? He glanced back, stifling the urge to forcibly shut his squadmates up, and spotted Radio.

He didn't look like a Wehrmacht poster any more. Like the rest of them, he had dulled his skin with mixed smears of camouflage paint and mud. The hair was hidden under his bush hat. Just the eyes were left, and they stared out of the darkness at Tommy, gleaming like chips of ice.

You can be raised by a good, loving family, who try to teach you to be the best person you can be. You can have a twin sister that adores you. You can believe what you were raised to believe: that people are good, that transgressions can be forgiven. But after a certain point, all that goodness starts sloughing off. Vietnam . . .

The Phoenix Master of the Arashikage would always be a survivor. By the time he reached age thirty-five, he would have suffered through torture, clung to sanity despite brainwashing and betrayal, fought against the alien memories that invaded his brain when a mad scientist used him as part of a freakish genetic experiment. But he would still remember Vietnam, and he would still have nightmares that he was back in that dank jungle. If it did that to a scion of a ninja clan, what chance did the small-town kid have?

They looked like snake's eyes. Cold, glassy, fixed.

It would be a long time before Tommy saw them any other way. And the memory of those snake's eyes made him, as he was dragging the crazy squirming redhead through Destro's castle, stop to have a look at her. He got a nasty bite for his pains, true. But in a way, it was worth it.

You don't leave a man behind. And if that loony Red could drag his sword brother out of Vietnam, then more power to her.

* * *

_Swiss Army ninja_

Throwing spikes, whip chain, shuriken, poisons, spare clips, sharpening kit for his swords . . . Kamakura was loaded for bear. Gearing up for a mission meant being prepared for practically anything. A fully-stocked ninja would never be caught weaponless (though he could be in danger of drowning) and Kamakura, the apprentice of a legend, wouldn't disgrace his sensei by going unarmed in any situation.

"It makes you look like a bad Hong Kong action flick."

"Heather . . . "

"I'm not saying that's a huge problem. But you should know that. Especially if you walk around in public like that. And is that a fishnet sleeve? Seriously?"

Unfortunately, going armed wasn't a good thing. Especially if you wanted to kill your sister.

Heather Collins, formerly Heather Broca, was the sister of Kamakura—Sean Collins, when he was at home. She had offered to help him unpack his duffel when he had arrived at their mother's house, which in retrospect was a mistake; she had swiped his Halloween candy when he was eight, and while age had somewhat matured her, she still had an all-consuming need to pry into her brother's belongings. She had found, tucked into the lining of the duffel, a small photograph of Ninja Force. Now Kamakura was paying for it.

"They're perfectly nice people," Mom said warningly, pushing the refrigerator closed with a final-sounding thud. "If it wasn't for Sgt. Snake-Eyes and Sgt. Stalker, we wouldn't have been able to get away from Cobra when you two were kids."

"Mom, I said it wasn't a bad thing." Heather eyed the photograph, turning it sideways as she examined it. There they all were—sensei and the Phoenix Master, looking as proud as people could through heavy masks; Sgt. Scarlett, technically not a ninja but almost as good as any of them, standing with her arms crossed and a grin on her face; Kamakura himself in the front row with Jinx and Tiger Claw, the latter of whom was fulfilling the traditional apprentice role by being photographed in the middle of a yawn; and off to the side, T'jbang, who seemed totally unconcerned with the fact that he was the only one wearing a bright yellow mask. If Kamakura didn't know better, he'd think his sister was giving T'jbang a second look. "But I can't help it. There's no good way to say 'my brother's a ninja,' you know?"

"Ninja _apprentice," _Kamakura corrected automatically. "Technically speaking, only sensei, Storm Shadow, and Jinx are real ninja."

"Your social circle sounds like a Dungeons and Dragons group, little brother," Heather said affectionately. She sat down at the kitchen table and slid the photograph across to him. "I've been meaning to ask, by the way: is there some kind of ninja code about the use of your abilities for good or something?"

Kamakura eyed his mother. Mrs. Collins sighed a little, put down the bowl she'd been mixing bread dough in, and shook her head.

" . . . technically no," Kamakura said cautiously, turning back to his sister. "But if sensei thinks I've acted inappropriately, I'll be murdered in the name of improving my training." Heather's eyes widened. "Not _literally._ What's wrong?"

"There's this guy who works at my office. He started out really nice, and we went on dates a few times, but now he won't stop calling me. I tried ignoring him, but he won't get the hint. I think he's been going through my mail . . ."

Kamakura looked at his mother again. She was rubbing her forehead as if there was a headache growing there, and for a moment, Kamakura thought he understood the feeling.

"All right, he _has _been acting a little pushy," Mrs. Collins said. "But Heather, if you want to break up with Luke, you need to tell him. Siccing your ninja brother on him is not the best way to go about it. My generation had this little thing called a 'Dear John' letter."

Heather grinned. "But what's the point of having a ninja in the family if you can't use it?"

"To help you break up with a guy?" Kamakura said wearily. "Heather, the only kind of techniques I know are less 'break up' and more 'break into small pieces, preferably with maximum tissue damage.' And believe me, if there's such a thing as bringing your work home with you, that's it."

"Oh, come on, Sean. I just wanted you to scare him a little."

"Fine. I'd scare him. And then sensei would beat me into the ground for abusing civilians. And then General Hawk would beat me into the ground for possibly endangering the secrecy of the team. Then, if I was lucky enough to not get beat into the ground by Storm Shadow for being an idiot, Jinx and Scarlett would beat me into the ground for helping you do something that annoys the hell out of women who have the guts to just break up with their boyfriends themselves instead of getting a guy to help them do it." He rested his head on his hands. "So really . . . seeing as how I like my internal organs where they are . . . I'm sorry, Heather. Can't help you."

She sighed. "You know, Sean, you'd be a lot more fun if you _acted _like one of those bad Hong Kong flicks too. Would it get you vengeful if I told you he got drunk and kissed the secretary at the last office Christmas party?"

"No. No, it wouldn't."

"You're no fun."

"Sensei had the right idea. Maybe I should hide out in the end of nowhere too. Antarctica sounds nice."

Heather's brow wrinkled. "What?"

"Nothing."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** Fourth set of ficlets. Thanks so much to everyone who's read, and especially to those folks who are kind enough to drop a review and let me know they're enjoying it. I'm running out of prompts fast, so this may be over in a week or so—just in time for my laptop to get out of the shop, whereupon "Order Up" will recommence. I hope this has been a pleasant little interlude.

"How much is too much" was inspired by Storm Shadow's occasional Captain Exposition tendencies in the original comics. "Information to die for" came from one of my favorite panels of the Borovia arc, where Cross-Country is watching while Lady Jaye and Flint are arguing.

Sadly, I've run out of "adjective ninja" prompts. The ninjas will still get plenty of screen time, though. God help us all.

**Rating:** T

**Disclaimer:** G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

_How much is too much_

"I know what you're thinking, brother. It's incredibly tempting—but we probably shouldn't."

" . . . "

"After all, as you know, Beach Head is an extremely irritating drill instructor. He can't beat us—not ninja of the Arashikage clan, as we are—but we do have to obey everything he says. All of us Joes have to take PT, or physical training, every morning."

" . . . "

"Of course, we normally enjoy tormenting him as much as possible. It amuses us to no end to see him turning red because we can't be defeated by wall-climbs or mudpits. And today, as you signaled to me earlier, he's had a fight with Cover Girl and is likely to be in a foul mood. This makes it very tempting to torment him further. But if we do, we'll be putting ourselves in for a world of drudgery. Because while he can't challenge our skills, he can make us do pushups until the end of time."

" . . . "

"And I see by your expression that you have some disagreement with me, brother. Speak your mind."

An annoyed sigh. [Would you please stop _narrating?_]

"What?"

[I can sign. It's not as if there's some invisible audience you need to explain everything to.]

"I know you can sign, brother. After all, you're a commando as well as a ninja, and even a proverbially silent commando needs some form of communication with his fellow soldiers-"

[All right, now you're doing it just to annoy me.]

* * *

_Information to die for_

Cross-Country, "redneck and proud of it," had a fairly practical view of life and the world. This had been instilled in him by his daddy from the very beginning: "Son," as his father had said on many occasions, "you always know where you stand with a truck. Those politicians and smart boys can talk the hind leg off a jackass, but either a truck goes forward or it don't. Stick to what you're certain of."

These were words to live by—a literal statement since, by sticking to what he was certain of, Cross-Country had managed to survive some of the bloodiest engagements in the history of the Joes. He wasn't one of the soldiers that made captured Cobras piss themselves (that was a privilege reserved for anyone who either a) could do a handstand on a sword blade or b) was named Beach Head) but he did his job and he did it damn well. Personally, he liked it better that way. His daddy drove a bulldozer, and his momma ran a road-grader: he was damn proud to be one of the people that helped other people do their jobs.

And there were certain bonuses in other departments, too. Cross-Country ran the Battle Wagon and the Mudbuster in most armed engagements, but his uncanny affinity for finding the best road—and for driving anything that had four wheels—meant that he had an iron-plated excuse for being virtually _anywhere _on base, including the administrative levels. (Hey, an Army runs on its paperwork, and y'all gotta understand that he needed these here authorization forms, yeah?) If Ace got bored with cleaning everyone out at poker and decided to run a betting pool over some happening in the Pit, Cross-Country was the first person he talked to.

The secret to Cross-Country's success was twofold. Not only did he have an excuse to be anywhere, but he looked totally innocuous while he did it. Unlike Beach Head, who had learned to restrain his natural Alabama accent for the sake of being understood when he was screaming orders, Cross-Country played up his origins for all he was worth—no threat here, folks, just a down-country redneck here to help move these here boxes, shucks. The senior Joes, the ones who'd spent enough time working alongside him, knew not to get suckered by stereotypes; in their opinion, if the new kids wanted to let their guard down around Cross-Country just because he looked like a hick (and did a damn good rebel yell, too—he was proud as anything when he spooked a Cobra sniper into falling off his perch), then that was their problem.

Of course, this also meant that some of them knew he was on the lookout. Everybody lived in everyone else's hip pocket anyway, and a certain amount of eavesdropping was expected, but Cross-Country knew better than to try anything outrageous. He'd refused a hefty commission from Ace during the infamous "what is Snake-Eyes' real name?" debacle, and continued to avoid doing anything that would make life difficult for the motor pool. Trucks either go forward or they don't, and Cross-Country wouldn't be caught dead keeping those trucks from going.

Anything that happened in the open was fair game for gossip, though. The one he remembered best was that time when Stalker, Snow-Job, and Quick-Kick had just gotten out of the Borovian gulag: practically everyone on the Utah base was out there to meet the plane as it coasted in. Not only were the three captives free (and doubtless in line for the best food Roadblock could make, which probably made the whole damn thing worth it) but a couple of Joes had gone rogue in order to help them get out in the first place. Most of the soldiers were exultant over the sheer guts it had taken for Snake and Scarlett to fake their own deaths (by _land mine, _no less) in order to get into Borovia, but there was one designated raincloud on the parade and his name was Warrant Officer Flint. Cross-Country, who was busy helping to unload the plane, was in the perfect spot to witness the whole thing.

First, Flint got good and pissed. Complaining that sure, Snake-Eyes and Scarlett were going on a dangerous mission that wasn't officially sanctioned and could end not just their careers and the careers of everyone who'd ever had lunch with them, but couldn't they have _told _him about it? And then Lady Jaye—and oh boy, moments like this made him remember why he'd joined the Joes—Lady Jaye laid him out with the cleanest, sweetest _punch to the damn jaw_ that Cross-Country had ever seen. Whack! Flint went down like a sack of turnips. Figures that of all the people who'd ever wanted to give the warrant officer one on the jaw, it'd be his girlfriend who finally did it.

Cross-Country didn't quite catch what happened next—he did actually have to help unload, after all. But Jaye was bitching out Flint something awful, and he looked up and said something back, and before you knew it they were hugging on each other like she hadn't just given him the mother of all bruises. Scarlett tugged on Snakes' arm a bit, grinning and trying to get him to give Flint and Jaye their space, but Snake-Eyes was looking back at them with a "What the hell was that?" expression that Cross-Country could see right through the mask and visor.

Good times, friend. Good times.

* * *

_Cobra Commander never changes_

Destro frowned at the latest paper that Cobra Commander had handed him. True, his mask made it look as if he was frowning anyway, but he and the Baroness were alone in his castle's most private office suite and he had dispensed with the mask for the time being. Besides, considering the paper in front of him, being able to frown—and, in fact, swear—was practically required. "Pyramid scheme?"

"We did it," the Baroness said. She was curled up in the armchair across from him, her glasses off and her hair mussed. Like Destro, she had taken one look at the plans the Commander gave her and reached for the bourbon bottle. "It is how the organization began. It did not work very well then."

"Satellite infiltration?" Destro inquired, running his finger down the list.

"Done it."

" . . . _rock band_?"

"Done it. Drank for a week to forget it."

"Did it work?"

"The drinking or the rock band?"

"Either."

"No."

Destro's brow creased. "How . . .?"

"Zartan," the Baroness said, topping up both her glass and his. The ice had melted hours ago, but neither of them cared at this point. They clinked glasses and drank. "And the Dreadnoks," she added. "In wigs. It was terrible."

"I say again, Baroness: _how?"_

She rolled her eyes, something she would never do if she had been entirely sober. Destro found it oddly charming—but then, he'd been drinking rather steadily as well. They were both the most relaxed they'd been in years. "Do you remember that program you wrote a few years before you joined Cobra? The thing that synthesized music?"

"The project I created to win a bet with my science division? He actually-" Destro couldn't quite finish the thought.

The Baroness drained her glass. "Cobra Commander never changes. He sees something he thinks he can use, and there is no stopping him!"

"Do you think he realizes he's handed us a list of 'new plans' that have all been tried and failed?"

"Do _you_ think he realizes that he still has a concussion from that big ugly Joe's rifle butt? I tried to get him to see the doctors, but he swears he will not take off his mask for anything. Now he is chanting 'Cobra-la' and insisting we retry the rock band project." She poured herself another shot of bourbon. "If you had not called this 'strategy meeting,' Destro, I do not know what I would have done. It is like trying to steer an excitable child."

"An excitable child," Destro repeated, "with a nuclear missile. And as for the meeting, my dear Baroness—you know you're always welcome here."

Her head lolled back against the headrest, and she smiled at him. Her legs were drawn up and her feet tucked under, so that she curled into the armchair in a uniquely careless fashion. Love was all very well, but shared commiseration and bourbon were the things that really helped break through years of paranoia and backstabbing.

"You are too good to me, James," she said softly. "I wonder, sometimes, that you do not give up on me."

There wasn't much of a response for that. Instead, he poured them both one final glass, and she raised hers in salute to him. "_Budem zdorovy_," she toasted. Destro smiled humorlessly into his own drink.

'Let's stay healthy' indeed. Physically, perhaps. Sanity, perhaps not.

* * *

_Snark in the face of death_

It's a fact of life: when confronted with danger, a person will either bear up or break down. People who broke down didn't last long in the Joes, who despite their excellent medical care needed to be on the field as often as possible, but the ones who bore up had a variety of ways of doing it.

Alcohol was a no-go, especially on duty. Joes on leave could drive the few miles to Dakota City or some of the other small towns in the Utah desert, but they'd damn well better not come back on duty crocked or they'd get an earful from Beach, Duke, and Hawk. So during downtime, Joes would try to unwind and keep cool by a variety of other methods.

Gambling was a big one: Ace had the book on pretty much anything you cared to ask about. Even if you weren't betting on it, though, there was always some kind of game going on. During rare moments of quiet in the motor pool, the gearheads would clear an area and play floor hockey with whatever was at hand. This had proved such a useful distraction that the workers in the aircraft hangars had formed their own team, and now there was a growing rivalry between followers of the Motormouths (Cover Girl had chosen the name, claiming to be inspired by a certain unnamed Mauler driver) and the SEs (short for Scorched Earth). Beach Head had issued a general order that anybody injured during a hockey game would _not _be exempt from PT, so the games weren't quite as violent as the NHA's, but it was a near thing sometimes.

The only thing the two teams agreed on was that no ninjas were allowed to join. Storm Shadow could be downright lethal with a hockey stick.

Ordinance in general was usually entertaining. Nose-art on planes was officially discouraged by the military these days, but Hawk was usually willing to look the other way if it was the kind of vehicle that wouldn't be appearing in newspaper photos. Cover Girl, Scarlett, and Lady Jaye had all turned down offers to model for nose-art; when Clutch went ahead and painted them anyway, the women all pitched in and bribed Recondo (a surprisingly good artist) to give the newest Mauler a caricature of its driver in a feather boa and heels. There was a temporary ban on all vehicle art after that, as well as the Joes' first recorded instance of all three women, Recondo, _and _Clutch being on KP at the same time.

However, even with vehicle art off the menu, writing on missiles and bombs was still kosher. After one particularly intense desert brawl with a whole squadron of HISS tanks, Dusty had decided to hold an informal contest for mocking or intimidating slogans to paint on the next batch of ordinance. Offerings included:

"CobraaaAAUUGH!", from Airborne.

"Brought to you by Broca Industries, Inc.," from Breaker.

"Fly the friendly skies," from Ace.

"Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker," from Wild Bill.

"A koan for you: what is the sound of one lung puncturing?" Guess who.

However, the clear winner was Recondo, who recouped some lost credit by using a Stinger missile as the canvas for his "Portrait of Beach Head at 0400." This was judged unanimously to be the most terrifying thing submitted to the contest, or indeed ever painted, and Recondo was declared the winner and awarded a significant cash prize. He also had the honor of _not_ being beaten into the ground by Beach Head, which caused a fresh crop of rumors and made Psyche-Out add six more pages to Beach's already prodigious file.

It was all incredibly unprofessional, of course. Unacceptable by most standards. But Hawk understood the men and women under his command, and he knew that despite their occasional bouts of lunacy, they were the best at what they did. And who was he to mess with a winning formula?


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** Fifth chapter, but just one ficlet. One of my prompts got out of hand in a serious way, so I decided to use this as a standalone chapter. It was more directly inspired by "Rise of Cobra."

**Warning:** this chapter contains future-Snake and future-Scarlett, plus hypothetical offspring. There are also references to long-standing Beach-Head/Cover Girl, also plus hypothetical offspring. That officially makes this chapter escapist fluff of a possibly tooth-rotting strength. Beware!

I'm also guilty of cherry-picking canon for said escapist fantasy. In order for this scenario to work, the Joes would have to be defunct, so presumably nothing after the end of the Marvel series strictly happened—Lady Jaye? Not dead. Tho' I'm afraid I made an exception for Kamakura and company. Because seriously . . . it's Kamakura. You gotta love him.

As for the issue of the kids' surname: Snake-Eyes seems to be trying hard to break with his past identity. Giving the twins his legal name would probably bring up too many painful memories. This is the same reason I decided to use Terri as a middle name, rather than a first one.

**Rating:** T

**Disclaimer:** G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

_Into the valley of death_

"Hey, Dad! Uncle Tommy's dead!"

Snake-Eyes froze in his tracks, but only for the merest fraction of a second. Wayne M. O'Hara was peering around the corner of the cabin, hands tucked into his pockets, and Snake-Eyes knew his son had seen the moment of surprise. He tried to ignore the sudden fear that had gripped him when Wayne said those words: he knew within a heartbeat that Tommy couldn't really be dead, because the boy was being far too casual about it. He was back at work within a second, moving through the kata with the same smoothness and concentration that he always applied to them. Only when the kata was completed did he turn to face the younger of his twin children.

One hand raised. [I beg your pardon?] he signed. [Repeat that. I must be going deaf in my old age.]

Wayne shrugged casually. "Uncle Tommy's dead. You killed him."

Not many things in life serve to confuse Snake-Eyes, internationally-renowned commando ninja and voiceless terror of the Cobra terrorist organization. If he had been wearing a mask, nobody would have been able to see it. But plastic surgery techniques had improved in the years since that fateful helicopter crash, and while he would never be able to speak, he now looking relatively human and went unmasked. Once again, Wayne caught the twitch before his father could hide it. And Snake-Eyes knew he caught it; he frowned, missing the way the mask had camouflaged his expressions.

[Whatever joke you're trying to play, just say it already,] he said. [Unless you'd prefer me to ground you.]

"Okay . . . Jenny got the movie. And you killed Uncle Tommy in it."

Short, sweet, and to the point. The very sensitive point.

The movie—or, more accurately, That Damn Movie—had been the subject of contention among the extended O'Hara family, and especially that part of it which overlapped with the Arashikage clan, for more than two years. Portions of the files on the now-defunct G.I. Joe group had been declassified in 2003, and while nobody's photographs or specific details had been released, there had been enough buzz surrounding the formerly-secret government initiative that a film deal had been inked almost immediately. "Scarlett" O'Hara, known variously as "Shana" and "Mom" to the inhabitants of a no-longer-quite-so-small cabin in the high Sierras, had been strangely amused—though like many of the former Joes, she had rejected the studio's offer of a hefty consulting fee. Snake-Eyes had been happy to let his wife handle the whole business: though he never said as much, he disliked the idea of having his friends' and comrades' stories turned into film fodder, and had gone through three bamboo cutting targets in as many seconds after Shana had received the producer's letter.

There had been many mixed reactions from the other former Joes. (As with the US Marines, there was no such thing as an ex-Joe—only a former Joe.) One Courtney Krieger-Sneeden had gone so far as to threaten the movie company with legal action over the use of her image, and Snake-Eyes' e-mail inbox still had a copy of a message from dashiellfairborne pentagon. gov which referred to a particular producer's representative as an "in-house fucking Mephistopheles." Others hadn't been so unhappy: Captain Conrad Hauser, who would forever be Duke to the old residents of the Pit, seemed to get a laugh out of the whole business. Ripcord _had _originally signed on as a consultant, apparently for free, but had resigned from the project in disgust after making dire comments about "attempts at military accuracy." Suffice it to say that there was trepidation about the whole business.

And now Wayne, the younger of the fourteen-year-old O'Hara twins and someone who was definitely bucking for extra climbing drills, was informing Snake-Eyes that The Movie was in the house. Wayne's twin sister Jennifer Terri had an unhealthy addiction to action films of all kinds ("raised around ninjas, it's not that unexpected," as Shana had pointed out) and had ordered The Movie as soon as it came out on DVD. Mail took some time to get to the small cabin—one of the reasons Snake-Eyes preferred it among all the various places the family went—but its arrival couldn't be prevented forever. And anyway, even the Silent Master of the Arashikage had to admit that there was nothing inherently _harmful _about a silly movie inspired by the G.I. Joe missions.

But . . .

[Why did I kill Tommy?] he signed, raising an eyebrow. Wayne shrugged again and tucked his hands into his pockets.

"Because he killed the Hard Master. Except he wasn't the Hard Master; he looked like those pictures of the Soft Master you showed us. You guys got in a huge fight at Destro's Antarctic ice fortress."

[ . . . Antarctic ice fortress? Destro lives in Scotland.]

Wayne was wearing just a bit of a detachedly amused smirk—an eerily Storm-Shadowesque expression on a face that was mostly Snake-Eyes. "Guess Scotland wasn't scary enough for them. Mom was watching it with us, but she started laughing when the big fight started and had to leave. But she says to ask you about your vow of silence."

For a moment, Snake-Eyes stood quietly on the grass. Then he let out a sigh.

[How bad is it?]

"It's not good."

[Are you watching it again?]

"After dinner. Mom said we could."

[Any messages from the clan yet?]

"Two from Kamakura, one from Jinx, and three from Uncle Tommy."

Snake-Eyes sighed again, and raised one hand to sign. [I know I'll never get out of watching this movie. But you, young man, have climbing drills to run.]

The amused expression on Wayne's face faded, turning into the sulky frown of an inconvenienced teenager. "Dad-!"

[No buts. You played guessing games with a clan master _and _your father. Five times up the tall pine on Sugar Loaf Ridge, and I don't want to see a single climbing spike while you do it.]

Wayne took off at a steady jog, making no attempts to disobey but grumbling all the way. Snake-Eyes sighed and ran a hand through his graying blond hair, wondering how he ever could have thought having apprentices would prepare him for having children. Especially children with half of Shana's DNA.

* * *

[Shana, it's not _that _funny.]

The red-haired woman was curled up on the end of the couch, her face pressed into a cushion as she attempted to stifle her laughter. It wasn't working.

"I'm sorry," she managed, mopping her streaming eyes with the cushion. "I knew it was coming this time, but that part just kills me. Poor Ripcord—no wonder he quit the project!"

[It's Breaker and Heavy Duty that confuse me. I think they squashed Flint in with Breaker; why else would he be quoting Tennyson? And why is Heavy Duty wearing an earring with a bone on it?]

"Because we're an _international _initiative, Snakes. Global Integrated Joint Operating—sorry, sorry, I'm okay—I—Global Integrated Joint—I can't say that with a straight face." She stifled another round of laughter, mopped her eyes again, and tried to focus. The bizarre, cartoonish versions of themselves was hitting Snake-Eyes harder than her, and Snake-Eyes guessed that she knew it. He wasn't about to lose his temper right then, but the next time a mission demanded the Silent Master's personal attention, somebody was going to get their feet shoved up their own nose. "And international operatives wear bones, I guess."

[At least now we know why Cover Girl was so angry.]

"I know, right? Ouch. Although I'd bet you dinner duty that they didn't put that in until _after _she threatened to sue them."

Snake-Eyes glanced across the couch at his wife, who was smiling broadly. [You're really enjoying this, aren't you?]

"A little."

[But that--] He pointed to the screen, where a redheaded woman on a treadmill was denying the existence of love in classic Strawman Scientist fashion [--is supposed to be you. Doesn't it bother you that they tried to turn you into . . . I think it's Lady Jaye? Lady Jaye with a lobotomy, no less.]

"Well, they put you under a vow of silence and molded rubber lips onto your mask. Snakes, it's not us. Just some Hollywood film geek's idea of what it would be like to be us." She shrugged and stretched out, nestling closer to Snake-Eyes and resting her head on his thigh. Snake-Eyes waited for the inevitable outbreak of "Ugh! Mom! DAD! Stop it!" that always accompanied public displays of affection, but Wayne and Jenny, who were sitting on the floor with the popcorn, were apparently too engrossed in the explosions to notice.

A few minutes passed before either of them spoke again. "I do feel a bit sorry for Duke, though," Shana finally said. "I just know that everyone is going to be asking him about his relationship with the Baroness. He'll have a heart attack if Destro doesn't kill him first."

[He probably should be screening his mail,] Snake-Eyes agreed. Onscreen, the unJoes were tearing up Paris. While Snake-Eyes would admit to causing a fair amount of property damage in his time (and, though he would never say so, he was inordinately pleased that they had chosen a skilled martial artist to play him), the 'Delta-6 Accelerator Suits' sported by unDuke and unRipcord weren't usually part of the mix. In fact, one of the few contacts the Joes had had with robot-suit technology was when he and the Eskimo mercenary Kwinn had been brainwashed by similar machines. But an 'accelerator suit . . . ' He shook his head, and Shana looked at him inquisitively.

['What do they accelerate?' 'You,'] he signed disdainfully. [G.I. Joe _had _something for accelerating its members. Its name was Beach Head. Who has probably heard by now that Courtney was killed on film, and is doubtless planning some sort of bloody revenge. Possibly involving a barbed-wire crawl.]

"Or a mudpit. Beach loved his mud."

Wayne, mildly interested by the discussion of his namesake, craned his neck to look at his parents. "Mom, Sergeant Beach Head wouldn't really do anything like that, would he? I mean, he is some kinda psycho-guerrilla-type guy."

His mother gave him an admonitory whap to the back of the head, but not very hard. "Respect for rank, hon. But he's a Ranger. They're all crazy."

Snake-Eyes quirked an eyebrow at her, and she grinned. "No, you're a ninja first, Ranger second."

"Dad was a Ranger?" That got Jenny's attention, too—a miracle when explosions were onscreen. She turned as well, apparently surprised. "I thought you were just a ninja!"

['Just' a ninja?] Snake-Eyes signed. [Is my entire family mutinying against me tonight?]

"A ninja _with _all honor 'n' respect due to the Silent Master of the Arashikage and the sworn sword-brother of the Phoenix Master of the Arashikage, a bond forged in the fires of a thousand fights to the death," added Wayne quickly. He still had pine sap in his hair, so the lesson from earlier must have stuck, and when he wasn't being sarcastic his knowledge of ninja ritual and canon was exceptional. But there was still an insolent gleam in his eye.

Snake-Eyes preferred not to stand on tradition—he certainly didn't demand that his own children kowtow to him—but though the twins had been training as ninja from childhood, they were far from actually _being _ninja. If they wanted to wear the clan tattoo, they still had to learn about things like properly respecting the clan masters. So he didn't grimace too much as Wayne reeled off the ceremonial salute and titles.

Although his son should have known when to quit. "Master of the many ways of the warrior . . . honorable in victory, noble in defeat . . . first blond ninja in the history of the world . . . dodger of angry mothers at five o'clock on a Sunday morning . . . inventor of the Way of the You Can Get A PS3 If You Keep Your Grades Up—ow!"

Jenny retracted her hand, having delivered the patented O'Hara Smack to her wayward brother. "The big final bit is coming up," she warned. "And neither of them have seen it all the way to the end yet!"

"Oh, right. And ow," Wayne repeated, glaring a bit for emphasis. It utterly failed to move his sister.

The movie was coming to a climax. Cobra had launched missiles loaded with metal-eating nanobots (a move which both Snake-Eyes and Shana had to admit was pretty much the kind of hare-brained yet obscenely dangerous thing Cobra Commander used to do) and the Joes had to deputize the reckless newbie Ripcord to help chase down one of the missiles. Snake-Eyes was watching detachedly, trying not to let the strange caricatures of his old friends bother him. He _could_ get through this with his calm intact, or the appearance of it, anyway. Shana, who hadn't watched this far before, was clearly interested in spite of herself. Years of intensive training and combat experience had programmed both of them to pay strict attention when their instincts told them lives were on the line, even if it was just a movie.

Onscreen, three warheads had been launched. Snake-Eyes couldn't help smiling a little as his film counterpart managed to take down one all by himself—they'd got _that _right, anyway. The other two missiles were heading for Moscow and Washington, and wouldn't you know it, unRipcord was deputized to save the day by piloting the Cobra plane. Never mind that they seemed to have combined Ripcord and Ace—Rip was an excellent airman and qualified off the charts on all kinds of jumps, but piloting wasn't always his strong suit—but to be fair, they probably couldn't have gotten all the Joes into—

What.

On the couch beside him, Shana had frozen. He could feel her muscles tense where she was pressed up against his side, and her eyes were glued to the screen. The screen which showed a smiling Scarlett kissing Ripcord.

For a moment, there was dead silence in the living room. Wayne and Jenny, who had apparently been waiting for this moment, turned to look at their parents with mixed apprehension and amusement. Snake-Eyes, not quite sure what to do, also looked at Shana.

"Well," she said, after a long moment, "Duke isn't the only one who's going to fear for his life." She took a deep breath, and Snake-Eyes could see her mentally counting to ten. Judging by the time she took to do it, she was counting in multiple languages, too. That wasn't a good sign. "Jenny . . . you followed the development of this . . . thing. Exactly what kind of consulting did Ripcord do?"

Jenny shook her head, a little wide-eyed. Snake-Eyes knew that it wasn't unheard-of for the children to see their mother angry, but they didn't normally see her bypass anger in favor of strict stone-cold rage. "I, uh, I don't think he came up with _that _part," she said carefully. "I read one article about how he was getting in some kind of argument with the scriptwriters and the actor about the changes being made to the story, and the actor sorta overhauled his character . . . "

At that, Shana relaxed a little. Snake-Eyes put a hand on her shoulder, and she shook her head and grinned ruefully up at him. "Sorry, Snake. I was thinking—well—"

[I know. _Ripcord?_] Snake-Eyes shrugged a little. He didn't believe for a second that Ripcord had actually caused that change in the script—Clutch, maybe, but not Ripcord. Still, Shana had always been sensitive when people made assumptions about who she was with, and he knew she needed a distraction. [Maybe they didn't think I was good-looking enough to get the girl.]

Good distraction. "And that would be where they were wrong," Shana murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck. Snake-Eyes happily ignored the movie in favor of kissing his wife, although this time the expected yelps of disgust from his children provided background noise. Not that it did anything; even Scratch (one of the latest in the Timber line of wolves), who was napping on the rug a few feet away from the children, barely pricked up his ears when Jenny made an exaggerating gagging noise.

It wound up being Wayne who got their attention again. "Dad! You're about to kill Uncle Tommy!" he called out. Snake-Eyes tensed a little, and Shana pulled back. She stroked a thumb over his cheek, where a ninjato had added a long scar even after the burns had been repaired.

"We can turn it off," she said quietly.

He shook his head. [It's just a movie.]

Snake-Eyes would later characterize the experience as something like a very bad dream. The versions of himself and his brother onscreen looked like them, but not _quite _like them, adding to the creeping unreality of the whole business. The movie's Storm Shadow had red-rimmed eyes and, as the swords clashed, an expression that was a strange mix of anger and tortured exhaustion, a look that Snake-Eyes had sometimes seen on his real-life sword brother. Of all the bits to get right . . .

A stab with a bladed tonfa and Storm Shadow stumbled and fell, plummeting into the icy Antarctic water. Snake-Eyes lowered his head a little. He could feel Shana watching him, and he knew she was wondering what he was thinking.

He wasn't _unhappy. _It was just a movie, after all. A bad movie. But in no world did Snake-Eyes enjoy seeing some form of himself murdering Storm Shadow—not when they'd come so close to it in real life. It took a moment for him to get a grip on himself.

When he did, though, he found himself back in a welcome reality. Storm Shadow wasn't dead: he was alive, ridiculously so, and probably planning on making Snake-Eyes' life a living hell over that molded mouth on the mask. The Arashikage clan was small, but thriving. Unless something had gone very, very wrong, Duke had never dated the Baroness. Destro . . . Destro was an ambitious, ruthless Scottish arms dealer with an odd taste in jewelry. Not much to worry about there. Cover Girl was alive, too, although she and Beach Head would probably both be out for blood over this whole thing. And Shana O'Hara was nestled against him, reminding him with her every breath that despite Vietnam and helicopter crashes and Cobra and one very weird movie, she was _his. _

They watched in silence as the movie wrapped up. Zartan had never made it to the presidency, as far as Snake-Eyes knew, but that wasn't something he was worrying about right now. He snapped his fingers for the children's attention.

[Jenny?]

His daughter looked guilty. "Yeah, Dad?"

[You have very strange taste in films.]

"So you're not gonna make me throw it out?" she said hopefully.

[No. It's part of G.I. Joe history, God help us.] Shana laughed at that, and he gave her a rueful glance before turning back to the twins. [However, both of you are required to remember exactly who your father is. I don't want to hear a word about parachuting from either of you. And anybody who uses the words 'lifelike hair' or 'kung-fu grip' is going to be doing dishes for a year. Is that clear?]

Wayne and Jenny both nodded, grinning half in relief and half in good old-fashioned snarky amusement. Yes, respecting clan masters would definitely be a problem for them.

"It's after eleven," Shana said, glancing at her watch. "Bed, both of you. And Jenny, take that DVD with you."

It took only a few minutes for the children to turn in; respectful or not, they had been trained in ninja skills and speed, and the latter helped immensely when you sense that your parents might want to do some more cuddling. The sounds of twinly bickering faded as they clambered down the ladder to their underground room, and Snake-Eyes and Shana were alone in the main portion of the cabin.

"Penny for your thoughts, Snake," she said after a moment's silence.

[Honestly?]

"Honestly."

[I'm wondering what we're going to do about their respect issues.]

She was resting her head on his shoulder, but raised it to meet his eyes. She seemed a little surprised that he wasn't making further comment on the movie, but he knew that Shana understood him well enough to realize that there was a point. "They'll manage," she said quietly. "Jinx is Storm's cousin, after all, and she gets a little more leeway than most. Once they start training in earnest at the San Francisco compound, they'll learn to separate the Silent Master from Dad."

[It's not just me,] Snake-Eyes pointed out. The image of Jenny grinning at the exploding cars came back to him again. [Kamakura is one of the best ninjas after Tommy and I, which means he's one of the deadliest people in the world, but to them he's 'Uncle Kam.' They used to beg him to spar with them. And remember when Jenny had that problem with the boy at school and Jinx was visiting? "These are good pressure points for bringing a man to his knees, Jenny. There are actually a few better ones, but you really shouldn't wonder about those until you're eighteen." And Tommy-] He snorted. [Tommy tries to spoil them rotten.]

Shana's brow creased. "And something's bothering you about that."

[Maybe. But it's hard to respect or fear the Phoenix Master of the Arashikage, a trained killer with hundreds of notches on his sword hilt, when he's Uncle Tommy. And after seeing that-] He gestured at the small television, now silent. [-and its overdone idea of violence for fun . . . I'm worried, Shana. Wayne and Jenny love these kinds of movies. They're isolated from other kids, and they're in a strange situation. I don't want them to grow up thinking that it's acceptable to respond to an insult by breaking someone's arm.]

She sighed a little and relaxed, resting her head on his shoulder again. Snake-Eyes instinctively wrapped his arms around her, and she nestled into them, molding the curves of her body to the shape of his. "Just a small-town guy who missed his home and was very, very lonely," she murmured. She seemed to be quoting something, but Snake-Eyes couldn't place it. "I know what you mean, Snake. Normal kids don't do katas or grow up with a litter of wolves. But I think . . . I think they'll be all right." She smiled a little, and Snake-Eyes tightened his grip on her. "Storm grew up a bit like this, and you said that when you met in the jungle, he was just like another guy. And _his _uncles were the Hard Master and the Soft Master. From the sound of it, you and Storm are a lot more approachable than those two.

"And you know," she added, and her smile turned a little mischievous, "they'll always have their friends. Speaking of which, I got an e-mail from Cover Girl just before dinner."

[You did?]

"I did. In addition to saying that, yes, she is very much alive, she wanted to say that George is planning on enlisting. Army, of course. No son of Beach's is going to be a jarhead."

Snake-Eyes fought the urge to slap his forehead. [How long until he turns seventeen?]

"Eleven months."

[Drill Sergeant Sneeden: The Terror Continues. There are going to be veteran Army Rangers _praying _that he doesn't get posted with them.]

She laughed. "He's not a sergeant yet, Snake."

[In that family, it's only a matter of time.]

"But do you see my point? There's a lot of us out there, and we're all keeping in touch. Our _kids _are keeping in touch—George and Wayne met eleven years ago, and they're still e-mailing each other. Wayne and Jenny aren't isolated at all. They probably have the largest extended network of adopted uncles, aunts, and cousins of any kids in the world."

[A network composed of former special-ops military members and ninjas.]

"Exactly."

At that, Snake-Eyes shook his head. [Why am I worrying about them? I should be worrying about the world. This is how secret international conspiracies get started.]

"I can see that." Shana closed her eyes, succumbing to tiredness but still smiling a little. "Maybe they can form that Global Integrated Joint Operating thing."

[As long as they pick better personnel.] Snake-Eyes paused. [And no damn accelerator suits.]

"Agreed."


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** Sixth and second-to-last chapter. This one was a little tougher to write; I used up a lot of my favorite prompts already, but I promised myself I'd finish the whole set, and finish I will. However, being forced to use prompts I wasn't necessarily so fond of meant my thoughts went in some interesting directions . . . "Lady of the Lake" is probably the most striking example of this. I'm not sure about that one. Flint and Lady Jaye are tough to write!

"Handstand by your man" was inspired by the scene in "Rise of Cobra" where Snake-Eyes walks on his fingertips to fool the sensors in the floor. I don't know how Duke got in there, except that I just love messing with his head. "Spoil the surprise" comes from one of the moments in G.I. Joe #26, when Snake-Eyes gets a rather surprising look at the ninja way of life. And when I reached the "No first use" prompt, my brain somehow connected nuclear weapons and Beach Head. Gee, I wonder why.

**Rating:** T

**Disclaimer:** G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. The excerpts from _The Spell of the Yukon _and "La belle dame sans merci" are in the public domain, but were originally the property of Robert Service and John Keats respectively. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

_No first use_

There were certain tenets the G.I. Joe team lived by. For the denizens of the motor pool, Don't Drive Angry was hardly applicable, but Don't Drive Stupid was a golden rule. Anybody working in the vicinity of the big tanks had to make sure that all their grease and oil stains were cleaned up before anybody had to be driving out. (Ever seen a Wolverine skid into a wall? It's not a pretty sight, and its driver wasn't like to be either when she finished murdering everybody in the motor pool.) And on the hand-to-hand floor, Respect was number one. Respect what? Everything. The space, the sensei, the ability of the sensei to possibly turn you inside out if you decided to dick around instead of practicing your drills . . . G.I. Joe lived a rather hazardous existence, and rules were there for a reason.

Sometimes, though, there were rules that subverted other rules. Sure, everybody _knew _that if a greenshirt was doing something stupid, they got reported to the sergeant major: that was the rule. But the smaller rule, the one that nobody ever mentioned out loud, was that the sergeant major didn't need to know _everything._ Technically speaking, Beach Head ruled the greenshirts. But Duke was his superior . . . and less prone to humiliating, soul-crushing punishments.

The only person to nearly articulate the basis for this rule was Mutt, and he had phrased it thusly: "If I'm trying to teach Junk not to piss on the rug, I'm gonna hit him with a newspaper, not a baseball bat." Duke could be relied on for a sympathetic, if sometimes sarcastic, approach to greenshirt-training; he never assigned more pushups than a human being was capable of, and if you had to scrub the barracks, confessing to Duke would guarantee that you were given an actual scrubbing brush to do it with.

It was no secret that Beach Head didn't like this. If his greenies were plotting together to hide someone's misdemeanors, or worse, were going over his head to avoid being both punished _and _humiliated, it meant that they weren't being worked hard enough. He rarely got proof—terrified greenshirts are resourceful greenshirts, after all—but when he did, Hell broke loose. Rumor had it that he conspired with Storm Shadow to help invent the best punishments, and this may have had some truth to it. What was forever known as the Toga Incident could attest to that.

It would be a mistake, though, to think that Beach Head just liked tormenting his greenies. By the time they'd been through a couple of months of training with him and begun earning their Joe code names, a batch of greenshirts would often start acting out _more: _having an impromptu game of dodgeball with a flight helmet, bribing the kitchen to give them a few bottles of cooking wine and throwing a party in the motor pool, referring to a female dog as a "beach," and so forth. And Beach Head would shout insults and keep them all running laps on the obstacle course until they collapsed into the mud. But every time, the amount of laps it took grew larger, and the punishments seemed less onerous. Beach would know that, and the greenies would know it too.

They lived in a world where snake-themed terrorists stole the mummies of famous generals to build the ultimate super-soldier. They were just as likely to encounter robots as they were humans, and one of their adversary's chief allies was a shapechanger who controlled an Australian biker gang. The ones who couldn't stand what the sergeant major put them through—who were never able to deal with the ridiculousness of being forced to scrub out a room with a potato—were the ones who couldn't take the lunacy of what the Joes had to do. By the time the remaining greenies had shaped up and earned their code names, they'd understand that.

Though it only went so far. If you were bound and determined to short-sheet someone's bed . . . better 'fess up to Duke. The sergeant major knew where to get more potatoes.

* * *

_Lady of the lake_

Flint, as a rule, didn't make a big habit of displaying his intellectual side with the team. None of them were stupid—far from it—but he had a reputation to maintain. Using French to negotiate with a surly ally or fix a communications breakdown was in line with his tough-as-nails warrant officer image; using French to dissect _Le Morte D'Arthur, _as he had done in college, was less so. Furthermore, the rough conditions that G.I. Joe members often lived under meant that things not immediately connected to getting your job done were relegated to the sidelines, leaving him less time than he would have liked to pull out the volumes of philosophy and literature that he kept in his footlocker. If it hadn't been for Lady Jaye--

A scholar of English literature does not, contrary to popular belief, have command over everything ever written. When it came to Flint and Lady Jaye, this was a problem. Some part of Flint, the Rhodes Scholar that was often buried under the day-to-day hurry of advance and retreat, ammunition and ordinance, strained to find the perfect way to describe her. Long-dormant scholarly instincts sought for the perfect metaphor. She should have been a Boudicca, or if he was feeling Shakespearean, a Viola—though the ease with which she could floor a Viper would make the famous failed sword-fight in the orchard even more of a farce than it was, and Jaye would see through Malvolio in a heartbeat . . . His mind was wandering again. No matter how hard he tried, though, he couldn't find the right one. Alison Hart-Burnett could be put on the pedestal with other legendary women, but Lady Jaye was something else entirely.

A curious fact: grand romantic poetry doesn't often overlap with firefights. Flint ground his teeth and, for a moment, considered going back to Boudicca . . . but that didn't quite fit either. It was impossible to separate the maddening impossibility of Lady Jaye from the world in which he saw her every day.

Once, he thought he'd gotten close. When she was angry with him (a depressingly frequent occurrence) Flint would lose his temper in turn, and any possible resolution would be dropped in favor of a screaming match. She once made him so angry that he forgot his previous control and, right in the middle of the map room, accused her of being _la belle dame sans merci—_a comment that raised a few eyebrows in the watching staff and made him mentally curse himself. She hadn't seemed as angry as he had thought, though. Instead, she had pursed her lips, and smiled. "'I met a lady in the meads,/ Full beautiful, a fairy's child,'" she'd recited, picking out one of the opening verses of the poem. "In a way, it's flattering. But you need to watch your mouth, hotshot, or it'll be a lily on _your _brow." Then she'd turned and walked away, leaving Flint gaping behind her.

Had she just threatened his life by picking up on an inference related to the death-symbolism in Keats' famous poem? Why yes, she had.

Flint considered his confusion perfectly justified.

It was not long after that incident, though, that he found a piece of the puzzle. He had wandered into the base library to see what he could find, but wasn't hoping for much: given the proximity of the chaplains and their assistants, not to mention the unbelievably pedantic and doily-obsessed inhabitants of the tearoom, the kind of things found in the base library tended to be fairly far from what he had in mind. (Just how many copies of Emily Post did one military base need, anyway?) Buried deep in the jumbled stacks, though, he had found a slim old volume with a worn cover: _The Spell of the Yukon, _by Robert Service. It was a little more modern than he usually read, dating from about 1907. But something about it tickled his memory.

Warrant Officer Flint wouldn't be caught dead checking out a book of poetry. After carefully glancing around to make sure that nobody would catch him, he settled himself on a small library stool and began paging through the book.

Robert Service was the kind of poet who didn't get read much in the higher levels of academia. He had, according to the little biography printed on the last page, been an office clerk on the fringes of the Yukon Territory during the Canadian gold rush—not the usual environment for producing deep and meaningful verse. Aside from a couple of lines about "the law of the Yukon," Flint had never read Service before. He opened the book at random.

_There's a race of men that don't fit in,_

_A race that can't stay still;_

_So they break the hearts of kith and kin,_

_And they roam the world at will._

Flint frowned at the page. "Men who didn't fit in," wanderers and action-seekers—that sounded particularly familiar. His mood was too sour, and too confused, to be reading about something that made him think of his own command. He shook his head, skimming an eye over the rest of the poem as he reached to turn the page.

_And each forgets, as he strips and runs_

_With a brilliant, fitful pace,_

_It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones_

_Who win in the lifelong race._

_And each forgets that his youth has fled,_

_Forgets that his prime is past,_

_Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,_

_In the glare of the truth at last._

Dashiell Faireborn, Rhodes Scholar, said "What a naïve, simplistic conclusion. I wonder what the New Criticism movement would make of this." Flint, Warrant Officer, thought of body bags and quickly turned the page.

_We couldn't sit and study for the law;_

_The stagnation of a bank we couldn't stand;_

_For our riot blood was surging, and we didn't need much urging_

_To excitements and excesses that are banned._

_So we took to wine and drink and other things,_

_And the devil in us struggled to be free;_

_Till our friends rose up in wrath, and they pointed out the path,_

_And they paid our debts and packed us o'er the sea._

That was . . . oh Hell, that was him, wasn't it? He remembered climbing the ranks of academia, the grind of theses and Master's Degrees, winning over professors with his arguments and getting papers published and being so goddamn _bored _that he thought he'd tear his hair out if he had to write one more analysis of the influence of _Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes _on the progressive movements of the late nineteenth century.

He shook his head, glared at the book for a moment, and opened it randomly at another page. Maybe this time he'd find something that _wasn't _about his life.

_Till at last there came One Woman, a marvel of loveliness,_

_And she whispered to him: "Do you love me?"_

_And he answered that woman, "Yes."_

Hello! This looked more like it.

_Then sweetly she mocked his scruples, and softly she him beguiled:_

_"You, who are verily man among men, speak with the tongue of a child."_

. . . that sounded suspiciously like what Jaye had said to him when he had tried to punch Dusty for flirting with her. Robert Service was beginning to tick Flint off. He didn't take lip from his subordinates, and he certainly didn't take it from a dead poet: he clapped the book shut and unceremoniously shoved it into a stack of tattered magazines. But the small volume didn't want to stay put and the stack overbalanced, dumping several copies of _Martha Stewart Living _into Flint's lap. The book landed on the ground, open.

A word caught his eye. Then another. And Flint reached down to pick up the book, because there were some things that elaborate French poetry didn't always say best.

_I know a garden where the lilies gleam,_

_And one who lingers in the sunshine there;_

_She is than white-stoled lily far more fair,_

_And oh, her eyes are heaven-lit with dream!_

_I know a garret, cold and dark and drear,_

_And one who toils and toils with tireless pen,_

_Until his brave, sad eyes grow weary -- then_

_He seeks the stars, pale, silent as a seer._

_And ah, it's strange; for, desolate and dim,_

_Between these two there rolls an ocean wide;_

_Yet he is in the garden by her side_

_And she is in the garret there with him._

* * *

_Spoil the surprise_

Normally, if a friend of yours sat calmly while planning to spring two dozen heavily-armed warriors on you, you'd be pissed off. In some circumstances, depending on the definition of "friend," you would also be dead. Snake-Eyes was neither.

He didn't strictly believe in ninja. No, perhaps that wasn't the right word . . . He didn't believe in the stories that were told _about _ninja. As a child in a small Iowa town, he had spent a great deal of his small allowance on comics about superhuman characters who could fly, turn invisible, or bend steel with their bare hands. The young Snake-Eyes had wondered about what it would like to be able to do those things, and perhaps entertained a few secret fantasies of superheroism. That didn't mean that the man who now knelt on the mat in front of the three Masters of the Arashikage—the man who was a Vietnam veteran, who had lost his family in a car wreck and now come to Japan in pursuit of the only real human connection he had left—believed such things were possible. Tommy Arashikage's use of the word "ninja" had made Snake-Eyes think of advanced martial arts, stealth training . . . Ranger school stuff.

Snake-Eyes had been through Ranger schools. Several of them, in fact. And it was an interesting fact of life that Rangers liked to scare new recruits just as much as ninja did. He had been kneeling on the mat as comfortably as he could, keeping eye contact with his old LRRP pal (who was doing all the talking, since the other Masters didn't appear to speak English), when something twinged in the back of his head: a little feeling, the sneaking suspicion that something was about to happen. He'd taken a breath, focused on Tommy, and successfully suppressed the urge to jump when the ceiling panels slid back and a mass of blue-clad ninja warriors leapt into view.

It was then that the Soft Master spoke for the first time—to Tommy. Snake-Eyes didn't know much Japanese (beyond what you picked up in a camp site, which was decidedly of the impolite variety) but the Soft Master had the beginnings of a smile on his round face. Tommy answered in the same language and then turned back to Snake-Eyes.

Since seeing his friend on his home turf, Snake-Eyes had been somewhat struck by the difference. The sarcastic and energetic Tommy Arashikage of the skirmish in A Shau Valley was very different from the poised Young Master of an ancient clan. But when the Soft Master spoke, the facade broke, and it was Tommy that grinned broadly at him.

"My revered uncle asks me to tell you that many of our students begin at a very young age," he said. The formal words were somewhat offset by the grin and the light tone. "However, he also says that he believes you have a great advantage over many of those students, because you have balls but no brains." Tommy folded his hands and assumed a posture of solemn wisdom, as if he were reciting a deep and profound truth. "Brains, at least, can be taught. Yet the student with no balls will remain ball-less forever."

Snake-Eyes raised an eyebrow. "How much of that was ad-libbing?"

"I may have summarized a bit."

"Any rules about humor during training?"

"If it's disrespecting the clan masters . . . survey says no."

"Then, since I haven't begun yet, tell your revered uncle that his wisdom is extraordinary." Snake-Eyes arranged his own face into a mask of impassivity. "If I had brains, I wouldn't be your friend."

"Truer words never spoken . . . but good grief, was that a joke? You must have hit your head on the trip here." Having said so, Tommy pressed his hands together and inclined his head to his uncles. "Hard Master, Soft Master, what is your opinion?"

The Hard Master said nothing. The Soft Master, however, smiled more widely than ever. "I think we had best begin his training now," he said in accented but perfectly understandable English. Snake-Eyes mentally cringed. "The Young Master does not need any encouragement in his sense of humor. Welcome, Snake-Eyes."

Jumping out on the new recruits, springing surprises, sarcastic superiors who waited to see if you'd put your own foot in your mouth . . . yes, ninja were more like Rangers than anyone would suspect.

* * *

_Handstand by your man_

"Mmmh . . . I don't think I can manage . . . "

[It's just a matter of endurance.]

Scarlett glared up at him. She had braided her hair tightly before ever attempting this stunt, but the braid was still flopping heavily onto the mat, and it was throwing off her balance. It didn't help that, now that she was upside-down, Snake-Eyes' signs were that much harder to read. "My endurance is _fine, _Snake. It's the finger thing I can't manage."

[It's simple. Look.] Half a second, and Snake-Eyes was handstanding next to her. Now he seemed right-side-up again, and it was just the rest of the world that was the wrong way around . . . though to be fair, that was usually how Scarlett thought of it. He raised himself up on his fingertips, balancing easily, and flexed his arms. His back bent as his legs curled forward, the tips of his boots heading for the back of his head. Perfectly balanced.

Then, possibly because his strength and flexibility weren't quite jaw-dropping enough, he raised one hand off the floor to sign. [It's just like a normal handstand. When you raise up on your fingertips, though, all the strain is going to transfer from your elbows to your wrists. That's the big change. Once you've adapted--] He dropped his hand back into position and walked a few inches on his fingertips, keeping his legs curled back to equalize his weight. Then back to one hand, easy as you please. [-see? It's just like walking your fingers across a desk. Same movements. The difference is the strain on the wrists.]

Scarlett cautiously braced her palms against the mat and, straining a little, flexed her fingers. Slowly, wobbling a bit, she raised herself up on her fingertips. "Like this?"

[Precisely. Now try moving.]

"How?"

A sigh—barely audible, but a momentous expression for Snake-Eyes. [I said before—it's just like walking your fingers on a table. Didn't you ever pretend to be Thing from _Addams Family_ when you were little?]

"No. But now I know that you did."

[I'm not worried. I know where you sleep, after all. Now walk.]

The redhead took a deep breath, let it out, shifted her index fingers—and promptly collapsed forward as her hands slipped. She managed to catch herself before slamming her face into the mat, but it was a small mercy. Bruised faces healed more easily than bruised dignity. She huffed out a sigh of her own, stretched her arms, and levered herself back up onto her hands, trying not to envy how easy the ninja had made it look. New skills always took work, after all.

"Well?" she said, tossing her head to keep her braid from falling into her eyes. "What did I do wrong?"

[You're more observant than that, Shana. _Look _at my fingers when I move.] He shifted up onto his fingertips and was off, finger-walking for about three feet before turning around and moving back towards her. Now they were both handstanding facing each other, the crowns of their raised heads at the same level, her eyes meeting his visor. [You can't shift all your weight onto one finger right away. Think two-two-one—the index and middle fingers take the step, then the ring and the little finger, then you shift your thumb into position to anchor for the next step. You have to do it quickly—don't give your weight time to settle, or you risk spraining or breaking something.]

"So like this . . . " Scarlett raised herself up again and flexed her fingers, sliding them across the mat as she moved a little closer to him. She was mirroring his posture, including the bent legs, and now her ankle brushed against his as she shifted into position. "Right?" she said softly. She was close enough to feel his breath on her face.

There was a gleam of blue behind the visor, and his mask twisted a little as he smiled. [Perfect.]

A soft cough interrupted them. Scarlett jerked a little and almost lost her balance, but Snake-Eyes just glanced up. Duke was standing in the doorway of the dojo, holding a pair of mission reports and looking about as uncomfortable as Scarlett had ever seen him.

[Hello, Top,] Snake-Eyes signed calmly. [Scarlett just learned how to finger-walk.]

Scarlett could practically see the wheels turning in Duke's brain. After all, the whole team knew about her and Snakes' "friendship," and there they were on the mats in a strange acrobatic pose barely inches apart . . . Duke was clearly trying to decide if he'd walked in on something or not, and probably wondering if "finger-walk" was a euphemism for something that he would never want to know about the Intel agent and the ninja. She probably should resist . . .

"It's harder I ever imagined," she said innocently. "You wouldn't believe the workout I've been getting. Are those our mission reports?"

Duke was doing his best to maintain his composure, but his ears were turning bright red. Scarlett reflected that perhaps she'd been spending too much time with people of the ninja persuasion; Storm Shadow's terrible sense of humor seemed to be rubbing off on her. But, to be fair, it was a completely innocuous remark.

"Yes," he said slowly, clearly reaching for something that wasn't related to the two bendy commandos on the mat. "Hawk wanted me to tell you that he wants to meet with you both about that manufacturing line Cobra had said up in the Pvnsk outpost. His office, 1400 hours tomorrow."

"Roger. Thanks, Duke."

The blond Top beat a hasty retreat. As soon as the door had closed behind him, Snake-Eyes turned his gaze back to Scarlett. Even posed as she was, her mischievous grin was unmistakable.

[As if there weren't enough rumors already,] he signed, but without malice.

She smiled a little and tossed her head, the picture of the coy Southern belle—not easy when the blood is really starting to rush to your head. "Don't worry, Snakes. It could have been worse."

[How?]

"I could have asked Storm to teach me."

[ . . . fair point.]


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note:** Seventh and final chapter. Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed this and gave me feedback—this was an interesting experiment for me, but one I really enjoyed, and I was so glad to hear that some of you did too. A story is nothing if it doesn't entertain, and I hope these did so.

Sad to say . . . the ninjas wound up pretty much taking over this last chapter. I tried to keep them out, mainly by saying "Goddammit! I was inspired by _Rise of Cobra_! Shouldn't Duke get more screen time?" Not that that stopped them: they're persistent little buggers, I'm afraid.

Fair warning . . . the future-offspring from Chapter Five make a reappearance, albeit in a reduced role. "Running with scissors" was directly inspired by CrystalOfEllinon's happy ideas of a certain young man's first day in boot camp—and really, you _know _Scarlett would get called into the principal's office once those kids hit school age. God forgive me, but I loved writing those bits.

"Touching my equipment" was inspired by a truly hilarious and bizarre book—Pope Brock's _Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam. _It tells the story of Dr. J.R. Brinkley, a man who practiced as a quack in the early part of the 20th century before striking it rich by implanting goat testicles in men as a cure for impotency. . . . Don't ask what this has to do with G.I. Joe, I just liked the setting. Please don't kill me.

The Combat Engineers' Hymn is a real thing, and it's closely based on the academic Engineers' Hymn. I highly recommend you Google it—it's funny as hell. Also, I'm fully aware that the USMC's song is actually called just "The Marines' Hymn," but I was using the word "hymn" too much in that paragraph and it just sounded off. Call it an intentional mistake.

**Rating:** T

**Disclaimer:** G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

* * *

_Scream for the fun of it_

An interesting fact of life is that combat engineers are insane. They're the people who build bridges in combat zones, defuse IEDs, hunt for mines, and in general do a lot of work that could get them killed very quickly. They have two responses to this: "More dynamite" and the Combat Engineers' Hymn.

The Combat Engineers' Hymn has been adapted from the civilian Engineers' Hymn, also known as Godiva's Song. It is, technically speaking, not a hymn: hymns are usually religious in nature, and unless you consider Bacchus the patron god of the U.S. military, the term can be said to not apply. However, nobody is going to argue with the combat engineers. Because, as stated above, they are insane.

It is a lesser-known fact, however, that there exists a unit of the service even more insane than the combat engineers. G.I. Joe, perhaps in the spirit of more-guts-than-survival-instinct that motivates some of the abovementioned engineers, has cheerfully appropriated the Combat Engineers' Hymn and rewritten it to suit their own purposes. Given that they are an inter-branch unit and can't sing either "The Halls of Montezuma" or "Anchors Aweigh" without somebody getting punched, this is an entirely useful proposition. It helps that the Combat Engineers' Hymn has a tune similar to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, is easy to remember and even easier to improvise off of, and contains exactly the kind of humor that keeps spirits up when you're slogging your way through a jungle and wishing those damned snake-themed terrorist loonies hadn't blown up the only ration dump in forty miles .Like the Joes itself, it is fluid, adaptable, and sometimes not very appropriate.

_A Cobra and a G.I. Joe were stranded on a boat_

_And two men were too heavy so the damn thing wouldn't float_

_The G.I. Joe would flip a coin to settle the dispute_

_So he flipped it in the water and the Cobra gave pursuit!_

Good for a laugh when your spirits are low. Their version was structured just like the original engineers' song—dozens of verses, each telling a self-contained anecdote, which could be arranged in any order and altered to suit the singer's tastes or the current situation. Occasionally, though, someone would use it to settle a dispute or make a point:

_Now G.I. Joe's a unit that is known both far and near_

_Their bravery and guts have taught the Cobras how to fear_

_But when their ordinance breaks down and commandos get the gout_

_They yelp and scream and howl for support to help them out._

This is a good example of the kind of thing that causes feuds in the Pit, and there were a few isolated incidents of grudge-holding after quartermaster Storage Vault debuted that one while helping to load a truck. The G.I. Joe Hymn has been the cause of more than a few fights. Sometimes, though, the singer just plain doesn't think:

_I happened once upon a girl with hair as red as fire_

_Her physical endowments would have made your hands perspire_

_And yet this goddess got no satisfaction from her beau_

'_Cause her boyfriend worked all hours as a ninja for G.I. Joe!_

Alas, poor Shipwreck. They knew him well.

* * *

_Ginsu_

"Ms. O'Hara, thank you for coming on such short notice . . ."

"It's no problem. What happened?"

"Now . . . um . . . well, Ms. O'Hara, let me reassure you that there won't be any penalties. We here at Lincoln Grove Elementary have to say that as far as we can tell this incident was _not _instigated by your daughter."

A sigh. "That's not very reassuring, Principal Farley. So what was the 'incident'?"

"Apparently, there was an argument on the playground."

"And Jenny started a fight?"

"I wouldn't say _started _per se . . . more like _finished."_

"Oh, no! Is the other kid all right?"

"No, nobody's been damaged. But the students are all a bit frightened of her now. Given her age . . . nobody's ever seen a seventh-grader run away from a second-grader, you know."

"Mr. Farley, please tell me. What exactly started all this?"

Papers shuffled as the principal examined his notes. "It seems that Ali Montgomery decided to, er, tease your daughter. It was on the subject of your . . . ah . . . partner . . ."

"Husband. What did she say?"

"'You know another word for mute is _dumb, _right?' Among other things."

" . . . how very original. Is this Ali Montgomery the blonde girl who has the pink camouflage backpack? We saw her at the last PTA night."

"That would be her. As far as we can tell, your daughter had attracted her attention by telling her that pink camouflage wouldn't blend into anything. She attempted to taunt Jenny a number of ways, but apparently it was the 'my dad can beat up your dad' that did it."

A soft chuckle. "Yes, it would."

"Ms. O'Hara, please understand that we know your daughter was provoked, but Lincoln Grove Elementary does not permit fighting on the playground. Both your daughter and Ali will be kept after school for the next few days."

"That's understandable. Did she win?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Jenny. She won, didn't she?"

"I . . . yes, she did."

"Good."

An uncomfortable shrug from the principal. "Yes, well, I suppose—but that's really why I asked you to come here, Ms. O'Hara. You see, your daughter displayed uncommon and, quite frankly, uncanny abilities during the fight. We understand that you've put her in some sort of martial arts class, but Ali Montgomery was terrified and her parents are threatening to bring suit. They swear your daughter isn't stable. We've had to quiet them by promising to put you in contact with a child services representative."

" . . . I beg your pardon?"

"The representative will be visiting your home on Thursday evening; she'll be calling you to arrange a meeting shortly. Please understand that it's nothing serious—merely a perfunctory visit to ensure that everything is stable. The state of Washington feels very strongly about child safety."

"How does it feel about wolves?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Oh, nothing."

* * *

_Touching my equipment_

**Excerpt from the Greenville, Mississippi_ Examiner, _July 22nd, 1914.**

GREENVILLE—In what local authorities are labeling "a clear danger of an unhealthy taint in the water supply," a curious incident was witnessed by approximately sixty-five people yesterday evening. Two strangely-dressed men, accompanied by a lady with a Northern accent, charged down Wilson Street—rudely disrupting the evening supper and boating crowd—before vanishing into what was described as "a large circular doorway made of blue light."

This strange incident was the cap on a rather confusing day. The three were first spotted around eight o'clock in the morning by Wilfred Harley, who reported a disturbance to the police, claiming that "three odd-looking folks fell out of midair and landed in my duck pond." Mr. Harley was later proven to be intoxicated at the time—a bottle of Peruna was found in one of his pockets—but he gave a coherent description of the strangers. The men were both disguised, with the larger of the two wearing a green woollen mask and the other all in black. The lady had apparently forgone the current fashions and was wearing high boots, trousers, and a leather jacket with a sheepskin collar: "Quite pretty, too," Mr. Harley claimed to the ire of Mrs. Harley, who had come to bail him out after he was arrested for public drunkenness.

The trio was later seen on the east side shortly after noon. Mrs. Lawrence Wilkes, of Jefferson Street, claimed that she spotted them scaling a fence and stealing less-conspicuous clothes off a washing line; the white dress the lady was wearing during the afternoon is said to resemble one belonging to Mrs. Wilkes, although this has not been confirmed. Several other residents of Greenville were alarmed by the appearance of the men: the larger went unmasked for the duration of the afternoon, but can be linked with Mr. Harley's morning duck pond by his noticeable Alabama accent. The other covered his face with bandages, causing several people to mistake him for a patient of the recently discredited electro-medicine clinic. At one point, when the bandages began to unravel, he stole a brown paper grocery sack and poked eyeholes in it.

At about seven o'clock in the evening, the three appeared at the north end of Wilson Street and began walking down it. Martha Stein, the first person to admit spotting them during this time, insisted at the inquest that the three of them were following "a little bit of blue light in the air, like a star." According to Miss Stein, the light appeared to be moving too quickly for them to follow on foot. The lady then pointed to an automobile which had stopped at the curb, and the man with the grocery-sack mask proceeded to haul its driver out. The driver, Mr. Frank Spenser of Jackson, protested, but fell unconscious when his attacker appeared to touch a spot on his neck. All three then climbed into the car, with the lady driving. Witnesses report that the Alabaman gentleman said "How do you like your old-school hot rods now, Cinderella?" to which the lady replied "There's old and then there's ancient, Beach. Still, there isn't anything I can't drive." They then continued their chase down Wilson, startling several passersby and attracting a great deal of attention before vanishing into the strange blue doorway of light.

The Medical Board of Mississippi has issued a statement, which reads: "The mass hallucination of light and disappearances appears to have allowed a gang of uncivilized thieves to escape with valuable property and has damaged the spirit of Greenville and its residents. This is a strong indicator of the need for heightened standards in the air, water, and foods which the citizens of Mississippi consume. In the wake of the insidious electro-medical fraud, this is only further proof that our law itself is in dire need of medical care."

Some residents, however, are claiming that the strange hooligans may have arranged the incident to their advantage, perhaps by putting drugs into the town cistern. Those who were standing nearest the "blue light door" when the trio vanish state that the Alabama man shouted "1989, here we come!", and that an invisible person apparently beyond the door responded "See, this is why you guys shouldn't touch my experimental equipment!" The Greenville Police Department is speculating that this strange coded exchange may be deciphered soon, perhaps lending much-needed evidence to this unusual investigation.

* * *

_Talking too much_

Sign language, even in a system that was as broad and well-documented as ASL, took time to learn. Most of Snake-Eyes' first few weeks were spent learning the basics: the alphabet, the various symbols that denoted names, places, and professions, and at Hawk's suggestion, basic military vocabulary. It made him think of being in an extremely violent kindergarten class, since he only knew one way to say "dog" or "person" but could name six different types of submachine gun without missing a beat.

One thing that he hadn't yet come across, though, was a word for "ninja." ASL apparently had one in its vocabulary, but he was being taught by Army language tutors who didn't know a thing about G.I. Joe, and asking for the word could be considered a breach of the team's classified status. Fingerspelling N-I-N-J-A was annoying, and worse, took too long. So Snake-Eyes, finding himself in need of a word that he couldn't ask about, resorted to inventing it himself.

It wound up being a better idea than he'd first thought. He'd spoken several languages before the accident, and he knew that different dialects sometimes had multiple permutations of the same word; inflection or pronunciation could indicate numerous things about the status of the word's subject. Given the multiple ways "ninja" was required in explanations, it seemed like a solid idea to Snake-Eyes. He began adapting the hand symbols of the _kuji-no-in, _which represented the aspects of the mind, for variations of the word "ninja."

The ninth symbol, _zen, _was the simplest and easiest for people who had never practiced the _kuji-no-in, _so it became the default word for "ninja." _Jin, _the symbol for unhindered ki flow (and which coincidentally was formed by clenching both fists) denoted "angry ninja." _Zai, _"the wind that scatters the leaves of memory," became the stand-in for "sad or otherwise unhappy ninja." Snake-Eyes was particularly pleased with _rin, _which symbolized the first step to channeling one's ki and also resembled a famously rude hand gesture: it became the new sign for "ninja who does not want to talk to you." _Sho, _the banishment of illusion, was one of the most fiendishly difficult signs, and now meant "ninja who is your superior and who has the authority to make you practice spinning kicks until your brains fall out your ears." Or words to that effect.

Snake-Eyes had always been quiet. When he spoke, though, he'd always managed to say a great deal in as little as possible—and that hadn't changed. He could reply to a question—"Why the hell did you do that?", for example—with ten different versions of "I am a ninja," and each time, the questioner would respond differently. If it was _zen, _then people would accept the statement at face value and write off his behavior as Yet Another Weird Thing Ninjas Do. If the answer was _sho, _then the questioner could expect pain, albeit pain motivated by the master-student status he shared with most of the Joes. And the symbol he was showing was _rin, _then any pain involved would be entirely informal and merely because the person had managed to piss him off.

Some pictures really _were _worth a thousand words.

* * *

_Running with scissors_

The year 2011 had just about dawned, and the newest recruits at Fort Benning were shivering in the cold as they clambered down from the bus that had brought them there. Staff Sergeant Ramirez observed them with some satisfaction. Right now, they weren't soldiers and they weren't civilians: they were _worse _than civilians, being civilians that hadn't had the good sense to _stay _civilian and not get within grabbing distance of _him. _

"Form up! On the footprints!" he bellowed. The recruits scrambled into line, putting their feet squarely on the yellow-painted footprints that were arranged into strict rows. Ramirez stalked up and down the line, eyeing the fresh meat. Most of them had the familiar glazed look in their eyes—a combination of fear, nervousness, sleeplessness, and just enough bravado to keep their backs a little straighter than usual. Not that most of them were actually standing at anything resembling attention: Ramirez had already mentally labeled them Quasimodo Platoon.

"Jesus Christ," he began, putting as much condescending disappointment as he could into his voice, "are you kidding? Straighten up! What the hell did I get, a bunch of hunchbacks? Head straight! Eyes forward!" He stopped near the beginning of the first row, eyeing one recruit who was overcompensating: the boy's chin was practically pointing skyward, and his legs were so straight that he'd be cutting off bloodflow to his toes soon. Ramirez glared at him, eviscerated him with a few choice words, forced him into the correct position, and enjoyed himself just a little when the rest of the recruits subtly tried to imitate the corrected stance without drawing attention to themselves.

He moved on. This was one of the most critical points of the whole process: finding out what he had to work with, and wondering what he could do with it. Ramirez had two other drill instructors on his team—Wilkes and Marconi, who were lurking a dozen yards back and examining the recruits on their own—but he was the senior man, and he was also the designated Bad Guy. Having Ramirez run the first inspection would add to the shell-shock atmosphere of those initial days in boot camp, and help shake the would-be soldiers into shape. As for Ramirez himself, it helped the training immensely if he could spot the troublemakers and bad attitudes right away. Plus, he was damned good at it.

Speaking of possible trouble . . . that was odd.

He stalked down the row, eyeing his latest target. Ramirez was not a short man, but this kid towered over him—six foot five if he was an inch, built like a brick shithouse with shaggy red-brown hair. He was standing at attention with the rest of them, but the difference was that he was doing it _right._

Too right. Feet at the proper forty-five degree angle, hands lightly tucked with the thumbs outside the fist, arms lined up with the outside seam on his pants leg. He even had his knees loose, a trick that people didn't learn until they'd had a few bouts with the old three-hour-long-inspection cramps. Ramirez stopped in front of him and ran a critical eye over the recruit, trying to find something wrong with his stance.

"You!" he barked. "You a washout, kid?"

"Sir, no sir!"

"What'd you do? Start as a jarhead an' drop when it got too tough for you? Figure the Army would be a little easier on you?"

"Sir, no sir!"

Ramirez gave the kid another look. Sure didn't look like a drop, but . . . ah. "You got Army family, huh? Wanna be like your mommy and daddy?"

"Sir, yes sir!" The kid hadn't even flinched. Too bad for him, because in Ramirez's books, his name was now Momma's Boy. And too bad for Ramirez, because he knew that kids who came in with some kind of starry-eyed hero-worship idea of what the Army was really like needed to be broken of that attitude quickly, or they'd never be able to learn properly.

"Well, that's unfortunate. We're not gonna coddle you like your mommy did. Marconi!" His most junior drill sergeant came jogging up. "Sergeant Marconi, kindly take Momma's Boy here on a nice casual tour around the obstacle course. Make sure he gets a very, very good look at it."

Marconi saluted and hauled the would-be hero out of the ranks. The kid didn't seem to know where he was going yet, but he shaped well, falling automatically into a loose jog and not even flinching when Marconi bellowed at him. Bonus points for guts. Unfortunately, that would mean he could be a lot tougher to break.

That being said, he turned his attention to the rest of the recruits. Momma's Boy would either relearn everything the Benning way, or he'd wash. Circle of life, just like that movie said.

X X X

Ramirez was in his office, going through reports and planning the next day's work, when Marconi came through the door. The drill instructor looked a bit frazzled, and there was sweat standing out on his forehead.

"What, did you run all the way back here? Something go wrong with Momma's Boy?"

Marconi shook his head. "Just . . . out of breath, sir," he wheezed. "He ran the course fine."

That made Ramirez frown. "What? I told you to put him through it as often as it took. What happened?"

"I did. It didn't take. He was slowing down by the end, but we're not going to break him that way, sir." Marconi mopped the sweat off his forehead. "And I was starting to have trouble keeping up with him. Oh, and he told me the A-frame wasn't correctly assembled."

"And what the hell does he know about A-frames? I'm seeing punishment detail in this kid's future." Marconi winced at that, and Ramirez straightened up. "What? You got something to add, sergeant?"

"His name's Sneeden."

There was a moment of silence in the office. Then Ramirez, summing up the kind of effect that one particular man's thirty-year military career had had on drill sergeants and enlisted men from sea to shining sea, said "Well, _fuck."_

Sgt. Major Wayne Sneeden was a legend in the Army and a downright terror to Fort Benning. He'd been a lane instructor for the Rangers there, but shortly after Ramirez enlisted, had disappeared into some type of hush-hush special forces unit. A few men stationed in beleaguered overseas camps—Borovia, Sierra Gordo, Trucal Abysmia—had reported encountering groups of frighteningly well-trained special commandos, one of whom wore a green facemask and answered to the name "Beach Head" but had that unmistakable Alabama bellow that shriveled your testicles to hear it. And a few years later, Sneeden had reemerged into the public eye, ornery as ever and twice as tough: idiot rubberneckers liked to say he'd "trained with a ninja," which had Ramirez and his fellow DIs snorting into their drinks, but the fact was that he was more frightening and immovable than ever. He was stationed in California these days, from what Ramirez had heard.

"Christ," he said after a moment's silent contemplation. "The Son of Sneeden. Sounds like a goddamned prophecy." He paused. "Adopted?"

"No sir. I checked his file. His mother's Armored Vehicle. Sgt. Krieger-Sneeden, down at Fort Irwin."

"Krieger?" Ramirez had heard _that _name, too. Back in the day, it had been one hell of a publicity coup for the Army when an up-and-coming model dropped everything to join the armed forces. There'd been a story about her not so long ago, too—something about her Wikipedia page being categorized under "MILF." Sneeden and Krieger . . . that didn't really bear thinking about.

"How the hell did a lunatic like Sneeden land a model?" Marconi said, voicing exactly what Ramirez was trying not to think about. "And what kind of upbringing did that kid have? You should have seen him on the obstacle course; he's probably in the best shape of any of the teenagers that come through here. And knowing Sneeden, he was probably raised on MREs. I don't think we're going to break this one, sir."

That jolted Ramirez into action. "Means we need to try harder," he said sharply. "A Sneeden kid is going to think he's a damn soldier before he's done anything. He needs to learn to obey orders, not his damn dad. If he so much as looks at you funny, I want him scrubbing the latrines, got it?"

"Yessir."

Spoiler alert: it didn't work.

* * *

_Damp hair on my pillow_

The small room was quiet, and oddly still despite its occupants. One of them was sitting cross-legged on the only bed, polishing a wakizashi with swift, experienced motions; to anyone who knew him, though, these motions would look oddly mechanical. Snake-Eyes clearly had something on his mind. The blue-eyed gaze was fixed on the far wall, where a vast collection of trench knives had been displayed. He wasn't wearing his mask.

A door opened, and Scarlett emerged from the small bathroom, wrapped in her bathrobe and toweling her hair off. Still wet from the shower, her normally bright red hair was darkened to almost brown, and like Snake-Eyes she was obviously distracted over something. She settled onto the bed next to him, draping the towel around her shoulders and wiping a few clinging beads of water from her face.

"The last one," she said quietly.

For a moment, Snake-Eyes was silent. Then he let out a soft sigh, put down the wakizashi, and raised his hands to sign.

[The last one.]

The last mission. The last time Scarlett would be showering mud and blood out of her hair, the last time Snake-Eyes would be scouring every last little nick out of his sword after it went through a snake-obsessed terrorist and lodged on the man's armor. It was almost too strange to think about.

Scarlett shook her head. "You know, I didn't think it would ever end." She smiled, just a little, though the expression was tinged with sadness. "We've been doing good work. I imagined training a new generation of Joes . . . finally catching out those damn Jugglers . . . putting Cobra Commander down for good."

[The bureaucrats say no,] Snake-Eyes signed. [Too much bad publicity. Cobra will have to wait.] It wouldn't seem possible to be sarcastic in sign language, but it was a vital skill in G.I. Joe, and Snake-Eyes had mastered it long ago.

"Getting stood down for doing our jobs. I hate irony." Scarlett ran her fingers through her hair, combing out a few small tangles. "You should have heard Beach in the mess. He was complaining that after some of the missions we've had here, training Rangers just isn't going to be fun any more."

Snake-Eyes snorted. [I'm sure the Army will find someplace to put him. Or maybe he can take the honorable discharge option and start shooting squirrels in the foothills of Tennessee. He'd make a better crazy mountain man than I ever did.]

"Oh, I don't know about that," Scarlett said, letting herself smile just a little. "Remember the last time we visited your cabin, and I went into town to buy shampoo? I asked some of the locals about you. You're a dead vampire ghost werewolf, apparently."

Another snort. [I'm surprised they haven't said 'ninja' yet—if only by process of elimination.]

"Naaah. A_ ninja_? That'd just be silly." She yelped as Snake-Eyes snatched the towel off her shoulders. The sudden shock of cold air raised goosebumps on the pale skin of her throat, and she shivered and pulled at the collar of her bathrobe. "I'm sorry," she said in a mock-indignant tone, "but it's not my fault you're a mythical creature."

[Right. I hang out with the manticore and the unicorn on Friday nights.] Snake-Eyes folded the towel in half and threw it. It unfolded neatly in midair and landed on the back of his desk chair. His movements were quick and jerky, and there was a hard look in his eyes, but he couldn't quite meet Scarlett's gaze.

Scarlett put a hand on his arm. " . . . Snake?"

They sat in silence for a minute. Scarlett was good, too good, at knowing when something was bothering Snake-Eyes; unfortunately, the ninja had spent a lot of time in his life accustomed to solitude, and he still wasn't entirely happy with somebody knowing that. Still, it was Scarlett—_Shana—_and he'd sooner cut the clan tattoo off his arm than separate himself from her. She knew these things, too, and sat quietly while he tried to find the right way to say what was on his mind.

[What next?] he signed finally. There. That seemed to sum up the whole mess as well as it could.

"I don't know," Scarlett said quietly. "I don't think anyone knows for sure." Shaking her head a little, she chanced another small smile. "Except Beach Head. No matter how good a mountain man he'd make, he won't take that discharge offer. Visions of slackers and improperly-assembled obstacle courses would haunt him forever."

[Just Beach?] Snake-Eyes responded, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, maybe Flint and Jaye have it sorted out. The Pentagon wants Jaye, and nothing's going to stop Flint from following her." Scarlett curled up a little, tucking her long legs underneath and brushing her damp hair forward over her shoulders. "And Ace . . ."

[Ace is running the odds on who's going to do what.] Snake-Eyes sighed a little.

"That's Ace. If the world ended tomorrow, he'd be betting on which of the horsemen got him first."

[What are the odds on us?]

Scarlett turned almost as red as her hair, but tried to keep her voice casual. "Well, a careful gambler can get pretty good odds on you either becoming a master of the Arashikage clan or ripping out Cobra Commander's heart and eating it."

That wasn't quite the answer he wanted, since that blush meant that something interesting had happened. [Just on me? Nothing on you?]

Now it was Scarlett who sighed. "There are bets on you, me, and both of us as a team. The popular option for me is that I'll stay in the military and either turn Special Forces or become a PT instructor myself—God forbid."

[And the third option?] Yes, Snake-Eyes was definitely intrigued now. He had a fair idea of what was making Scarlett embarrassed, but he wanted to hear the details himself . . . and, if he wanted to be fair, it was as good a way as any of approaching the subject that had been making him tense in the first place. He was never very good with words, and if he could draw it out under the guise of humor, it would make things that much easier.

She glared halfheartedly at him. "You're going to make me say this, aren't you?"

[Yes.]

"Ace is running a separate pool on baby names."

[ . . .what's winning?]

"Terri is the clear winner in the girls' category, but the boys' names are all over the map. Popular money's on either Clayton or Thomas, but a few people are getting ambitious and claiming that you'd just go the short route and name a baby 'Ninja.' 'Death' is also an option."

A silent laugh bubbled up in Snake-Eyes' throat, and his shoulders shook as he tried masterfully to repress it. Scarlett was smiling herself, a little more widely despite her own clear reluctance to discuss the subject in too much detail. [I have to admit,] he signed weakly to her as he tried to catch his breath, [it would be hard to forget.]

"True," Scarlett said, nodding solemnly. "And 'ninja' would be a nice name for a girl, I think . . . we'd probably have to spell it a little less conventionally, though. Nynjeaux, maybe? Unique names are a fad."

[They're also grounds for divorce.]

"What, we wouldn't be living in sin?" Scarlett joked lightly.

[Not if I could help it.] Snake-Eyes shook his head a little, watching Scarlett's face. The blush crept back into her cheeks, but she was maintaining a determinedly casual facade. Maybe she knew him too well, but that knife cut both ways. Jokes were a good way to cut the tension, and a good sense of humor had gotten them through a lot of missions . . . But if he knew Shana O'Hara, she too was asking what next—for _them, _not just for a commando and an Intel agent—and couldn't quite say it. It was easier, and less painful, to just laugh it off.

Here in the Pit, their relationship was solid. They had a home, of sorts; she'd moved into his room during the second year they'd been together (though if you'd asked Hawk, he would have given you a blank look and denied the whole thing) and they were practically the old married couple of G.I. Joe. In a way, it had been a strangely small-town sort of life. The base was a self-contained little world where everyone knew everyone else and stayed on the same page. Now, with the closure of the Pit looming fast, they were suddenly back to square one: frat regs, "why doesn't he talk?", keeping their mouths shut about their previous postings. If they both stayed in the service, there was no guarantee that they would be assigned together—and even if by some miracle they were, they would be losing the easy and understanding world of the Pit.

Thinking about that, Snake-Eyes came to a decision.

[I'm not reenlisting,] he signed. Scarlett looked up, surprised. [I want peace—for a little while, anyway. They can keep me on reserve, but no more barracks and mess halls.]

Scarlett let out a soft breath. "That's . . . that's fair, I guess. Good idea."

He looked down at her. [Aren't you coming with me?]

There was another moment of silence—this time, more shocked than contemplative. Then Scarlett closed her eyes and leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder. "You know," she said quietly, "you have a gift for sucking the angst out of any situation, Snake."

[ . . . Don't you want to?] Now _he _was starting to get worried. [Were you planning on staying in? Shana-]

She put a hand on his, stilling the increasingly erratic signs. "No, Snake. I want to stay with you." Her head dipped, and Snake-Eyes' heart leapt as he felt the warmth of her lips pressing a kiss against the skin of his jaw. "But just a tip for after the divorce goes through, all right?" she murmured. The tension was leaving her voice, replaced with the sly humor that she used in their more . . . private moments. "Asking a woman to live with you is usually a little more drawn-out and dramatic than that."

[We've been living together for years,] Snake-Eyes pointed out. He bent his head, diverting her attention from his neck as he caught her lips with his. She gave a soft little moan as he wrapped his arms around her, and her hands tangled in his hair.

When they came up for air, Snake-Eyes pulled back just enough to sign. [If we played by the rules of drama,] he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead, [we'd never get anything done. I love you, and I want you to stay with me. I'd rather just say that now and have you know it than try to say it 'right' and risk messing it up because I'm nervous.]

"You were nervous?" she said, still smiling a little. She was sprawled on the bed underneath him, the collar of her bathrobe askew, one hand still with a firm grip on the collar of his Army-issue t-shirt.

[I'm no good at talking. You know that.] Her hair was still a little damp, but its shade was returning to that gorgeous bright red; against the plain white pillowcase and sheets, it looked more vibrant than ever. And precisely because Snake-Eyes was no good at talking, he brushed aside a few strands of that hair and kissed her again. It said more than enough.

* * *

_In parting, permit me to divulge that in my mind, there is a new cabin in the High Sierras were resides a happy couple and their pet wolf. Borovia has a new, rather diminutive president, and there is a bitter bickering going on in that castle in Trans-Carpathia. In a high tower of the castle, a man in a glittering metal mask gazes at the darkling mountains and remembers a happier time and a different reality._

--Larry Hama, _G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero _#155

**The End.**


	8. Appendix: The Prompts and their Origins

**Author's Note:** I've mentioned that these prompts were generated by watching _Rise of Cobra _and basically scribbling down what came to mind. Since I've already used them, though—and since some of them went in very different directions from the scenes that made me think of them in the first place—I thought it would be fun to give you my original prompt list and note what inspired them. Maybe these images will give other people ideas, too. Thanks for reading!

* * *

**Spider-Duke:** The, argh argh, _accelerator suits _produced some very un-G.I. Joe images in the film. Chief among these was when, during the race to get the kill switch from the Baroness in Paris, Duke jumped up onto a wall and scales a giant pillar in seconds—looking for all the world like a deranged cross between Spider-Man and Iron Man. This one was sort of inevitable.

**Taking my toys: **The first of many, many prompts inspired by Storm Shadow. In the film, this pretty much sums up his motivation—Snake-Eyes was the favorite and got all the attention (and probably all the coolest training, too), and he killed their master in revenge for that. Movie-Storm doesn't share.

**Sleepy ninja: **Also inspired by Storm Shadow. Throughout the film, the actor looks almost exhausted to me; his eyes are red-rimmed, and there are bags and dark circles under them. Clearly, a life of amoral killing is wearing on him. I'm afraid my version of this was a little happier than poor Storm was.

**Too human for this:** Destro. Oh, so much Destro. Christopher Eccleston is a brilliant actor, and his reactions brought some real poignancy to the scene where the Baroness is almost killed by her nanites. Despite the way the film set him up as an almost-amoral bastard, Eccleston made Destro work, and at times it seemed like he was too human to be part of the film.

**Symbolism: **. . . it's what happens when an English major watches a film. Giant missiles, built by men, which explode and spray strange substances all over things . . . I'm sorry. I'll go now.

**Bring me the head of Conrad Hauser: **Pretty much my reaction during the majority of the film.

**Pretty when you're homicidal: **Scarlett and the Baroness both. Honestly, I can almost understand all those naughty-librarian fetishes now; glasses plus attitude equals a significant effect. And it was brilliant to see the women get a real knock-down-drag-out fight, rather than some creepy excuse to rip clothes off.

**All mimes go to heaven: **I feel so, so sorry for the mimes of Paris. Their main purpose in life seems to be acting as humorous background for when bad guys destroy Paris, and _Rise of Cobra _is no exception to that rule.

**Good-luck kiss: **_That's all it was, dammit!_

**Photo op: **The entire team seems addicted to posing as photogenically as possible. Not that I'm complaining . . .

**Old-fashioned ninja: **A lot of movie ninjas seem to suffer from this, and in _Rise of Cobra, _Storm Shadow wasn't much of an exception. It's the 21st century, guys! We have more weapons than just variations on the theme of "pointy thing that goes in the other person." (See also: "Silent Interlude.")

**That word does not mean what you think it means: **Weaponize. Is it a noun? A verb? Hell if I know! All I can figure is that Cobra really, really likes this word. It is, like "fuck," something that can apparently mean anything you want it to mean.

**There is a ninja on the roof: **And underneath the car. And on the side of the car. And on the ceiling. And in your base. And right behind you, RIGHT NOW.

**Fall-down kinda guy: **In the comics, Duke is a stand-up kind of guy. In the movie, he is not.

**No humans allowed: **Apart from Destro and a few moments with some of the Joes, there isn't much life in the cast. Ripcord in particular appears to be a comedy-bot stuck on setting number #62A ("Dayamn, girl!").

**Swiss Army ninja: **. . . how do they carry all that gear, anyway? Is Snake-Eyes a Time Lord with bottomless pockets? Because that would be brilliant.

**How much is too much: **Two hundred and sixteen recorded explosions. 'Nuff said.

**Information to die for: **Inspired by two things: the scene at the end of the Paris chase, when the dying Cobra operatives are facing the Joes after the car crash, and the attack on the Baron de Cobray's lab. In both cases, Cobra operatives are going bare-faced, which means one thing: they don't plan to leave you alive long enough to say anything about their faces.

**Cobra Commander never changes: **Turning people into snake-people with infusions of Cobra venom, cackling evilly, treating Destro like a disposable paper cup . . . yeah, that sounds about right.

**Snark in the face of death: **The entire cast. Not that you see me complaining.

**Into the valley of death: **A wonderful little moment during the rec room scene, and an aspect of Breaker's character that I wish they'd expanded on. When Ripcord heads off with the intention of putting the moves on Scarlett, Breaker says "Into the valley of death rode the six hundred"--a quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade," referencing an ambitious and noble but ultimately suicidal endeavor. This little moment made me think they'd combined Breaker with Flint (it seemed like a very Flint thing to do) but it suggested that there was more to Breaker than we got to see. Plus, given the bits of S/SE subtext already, it makes me think happy thoughts of film-Ripcord being discouraged in a very definite way.

**No first use: **Did they ever actually use the word "ninja"? If they did, I didn't catch it.

**Lady of the lake: **The Baroness, like the Lady of the Lake, gifts a man with a very remarkable weapon. I don't think the Lady ever weaponized Excalibur, though . . .

**Spoil the surprise: **Protip for both Cobra Commander and Destro. _Don't explain your plans to the good guys. _

**Handstand by your man: **Snake-Eyes handstands twice in the film, once while walking on his fingertips and once balanced on two swords, and I started wondering just how you train for something like that. Plus . . . hell, it looked fun. And "Stand by your Man" is horribly ear-wormish.

**Scream for the fun of it: **This one bothered me. In the introduction of the Vipers, Rex Lewis specifically said that they have no fear, feel no pain and lack the instinct for self-preservation. So why did they scream when they were blown up? Was it just something they had to get off their chests? ("Hey, viper #26! I think somebody just stuck a grenade down my shirt. Wanna pretend we can feel pain?" "Sure, why not.")

**Ginsu: **Ninja blades can cut anything, and I do mean _anything. _Plus, those bladed tonfas would be the best kitchen equipment on the face of the planet. The association was inevitable.

**Touching my equipment: **Breaker actually says this. "No touching my equipment!" It took a _lot _to not make this one a sex joke.

**Talking too much: **The script could have used some polishing. Also, I'm looking at you, General "Exposition" Hawk.

**Running with scissors: **The entire cast does this. Repeatedly. But to be fair, they're risking their lives for the safety of the whole world (or money, depending on which side they're on) so I can't fault them for it.

**Damp hair on my pillow: **I kept this one for last, since it was my favorite. During the escape from the collapsing base, Scarlett comes pelting through a door that's just about to close; the water is rushing in and everybody's soaked to the skin, and her hair is a mess. As she comes through the door she sees a certain ninja coming the other way, and yells out "Snake!" almost desperately. The two of them grab on to each other and race for the exit. I had a mental image of the Pit after it was all over, with Scarlett finally getting into some dry clothes and toweling the Arctic ice water out of her hair.

God help me, I'm a fangirl.


End file.
